Zen Habits Website

The Joy of Falling Behind

Fri, 30 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

By Leo Babauta

A lot of people right now are feeling like they just can’t keep up with everything — it’s just too much.

And it feels like the pace of everything we have to keep up with is accelerating. There’s more and more, and it’s coming at us faster and faster.

Technology is like fuel to the fire: more never-ending feeds, and quick replies to messages and emails means there’s too much to reply to.

What if we simply refused to try to keep up with it all?

What if we rejected the premise that we need to keep up? It’s an impossible game, and we don’t have to play it.

Here’s a new game: feel joy in letting yourself fall behind!

This game is about choosing what matters, and letting the rest fall off. It’s about recognizing that not everything is important, and not everything can be done or responded to.

This game is about choosing a slower information processing metabolism. Instead of trying to consume the firehose of information coming at us, we can take a bite at a time. And then give ourselves some room to digest it. Read and work through a book for a month, and really let it sink into your bones. Learn one tool or process more deeply, so that it can actually change you.

This game is about choosing a small part of the world to care about, instead of trying to keep up with the entire world.

This is about simplifying: choosing what you want to be close to.

And then letting yourself fall behind, gloriously, on everything else!

Allow the rest to pass you by, like watching a storm pass.

The practice that is central to this is letting go. When a new fad comes out, remind yourself that you don’t need to participate. When everyone else is hyping a new AI tool or cryptocurrency, remind yourself that you don’t need to get into it. When there’s a mass of great new articles coming out, tell yourself you don’t need to read them.

The game is about finding the Joy of Missing Out (JOMO). What a luxurious thing it is, to NOT participate! Let entire cultural phenomena pass you by, and gift yourself with the spaciousness that brings.

How to Be Mentally Flexible

Fri, 23 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

By Leo Babauta

A flexible approach to life is far more valuable than most people realize.

Our minds can become too rigid. We want to be right, we want to do things a certain way, we want things to go the way we want them to go.

This can lead to a whole host of difficulties we’re causing ourselves with this rigidity:

Becoming frustrated all the time
Getting into unnecessary arguments with people, trying to prove we’re right
Not being able to receive feedback, because of defensiveness
Disappointment and discouragement when things aren’t going the way we’d hoped
Stress when we’re feeling behind
Struggle to stick to habits and goals over the long-term
Freaking out when we’re hit with challenges, like health issues
Being afraid to take risks and fearlessly pursue our goals, because of not wanting to fail
Being stuck in learning something difficult, because we don’t want to look foolish
Struggling to focus when a lot of things are going on

I could list another 50 difficulties that arise from our inner rigidity, but I think you get the idea.

We are rigid because we mistakenly think we need to be. We think it’s the only way we can be safe, or not look foolish in front of others, or navigate a complex situation. This need to be rigid is an illusion: it’s actually holding us back in these situations.

So what can we do about it? What about some flexibility?

What It’s Like to Be Flexible

Let’s imagine that you don’t hold too tightly to your ideas, expectations, self-image, needing to be right, needing it to go the way you want.

What would that be like?

When things go badly, you could just shrug it off, and take things in stride. Find the lesson in it, and make an adjustment. Take the next step.

When someone is upset at you, you could listen to their point of view, and have some compassion for them. You could take responsibility for any negative impact, regardless of your good intent. You could hear them, and get them.

When you’re struggling with a habit or goal, you could take it in stride and realize that it’s a part of the process. Learn from it, and find a way to adjust and take the next step. Encourage yourself.

When someone disagrees with you, you don’t take it personally, don’t try to prove that you’re right, but instead listen thoughtfully and respectfully to their opinion. That doesn’t mean you change yours, and you can still share your thoughts, but it doesn’t have to be a battle.

When you’re feeling behind, just focus on what you can do right now, instead of what you think you should have already done.

When things don’t match your expectations, you let go of what you were expecting, and instead try to accept what’s in front of you. Appreciate what’s there. And then decide what steps you want to take.

These are just a handful of examples, but I’m hoping you can see what it means to be flexible.

How to Be Flexible

So how do we accomplish this kind of flexibility? It takes intention and practice.

Set an intention to be more flexible: release expectations, let go of needing to be right, accept and appreciate, be curious about others’ opinions and experiences, and deal with the situation in front of you rather than what you wished it would be.

Then start to practice:

Notice when you’re being rigid, and start to question why you need that rigidity.
Ask what you can let go, in order to be more flexible. It might be letting go of expectations, or how you want to be seen.
Ask what this situation would be without that thing that you might let go of. For example, what would this disagreement be like, if I didn’t need to be right? What would this project be like, if I didn’t need to live up to the expectations that I have for myself?
Try being in this moment without that thing that you’re rigidly holding onto. See what it might be like.

This is not something you can just figure out in a day. It takes some working through, some willingness to try, to be curious. I encourage you to explore this kind of flexible practice, and see what might be.

Get Support When You’re Stuck in Your Life

Sun, 18 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

By Leo Babauta

Most people I know are unwilling to ask for help when they’re stuck, because it’s a bit embarrassing. That’s understandable.

But we all get stuck sometimes — we want to get out of a rut, we want to change our lives, we have all the best intentions. And somehow we struggle to make it stick.

When this happens, people will often blame themselves, get discouraged, and let the failure become a part of how they see themselves.

I encourage you to try something different: get some support.

What do I mean by support?

In my Fearless Living Academy, we’re offering two free 20-minute coaching sessions as a bonus for signing up this month (October) — one with me, and one with one of our FLA coaches.

In these coaching sessions, we help you to understand why you’re stuck, and brainstorm some ideas for getting past the stuckness.

This is powerful because:

You’re asking for help. This is an admission that we could use some support, a humbling of ourselves in admitting we can’t do everything on our own. This is already practicing something different — being honest with ourselves and finding a new way.
You’re facing the difficulty. When we’re stuck, we usually don’t want to think about it, because it feels bad. But by signing up for Fearless Living Academy, you’re already deciding to face the problem. And by getting coaching calls, you’re taking a look at the difficulty with someone else.
You’re getting an outside perspective. It’s hard to see what we can’t see. When you have someone who has been trained to work with these problems, you’re getting a view outside of yourself that might help you see something new. Or at least confirm what you suspect might be the issue.
You’ll be getting someone who understands you. When we face these struggles alone, it can feel lonely. Other people in our lives might not be willing to really get where we’re coming from. When you talk with someone who understands the kind of thing you’re facing, it can be a huge relief.
You’re taking steps in the right direction. When you sign up for FLA and get coaching, you’re committing yourself to taking positive steps. That’s a huge leap.

I could go on, because I really believe in getting support through coaching and community.

In Fearless Living Academy, we also have:

Dozens of courses on habits and purpose
A community of people making changes and reporting regularly on their efforts
Monthly live workshops led by me
Daily focus sessions to do work or focus on habits together
Meditations, a weekly coaching thread where you can ask me questions, and more!

I’d love for you to join, and to connect with you and support you.

Join Fearless Living Academy today.

Staying Grounded Without Checking Out

Fri, 16 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

By Leo Babauta

A lot of people right now are feeling exhaustion from the news, the economy, politics, wars, the AI frenzy … it’s a lot to deal with.

People tend to have two responses to feeling like the world is too much:

Being over-engaged: Feeling anxious about the world, you can get hooked on following the latest news, doomscrolling through social media and other feeds, and spinning in your head about it all; or
Disengaging: It feels like too much, and so you check out. You don’t follow any of the news, you don’t check social media (or only the entertaining parts), you don’t get involved. Not my problem.

Is there a way to stay grounded and engaged, without checking out? Is there a way to stay engaged while not feeling so exhausted?

I think most of us want inner steadiness and groundedness, and none of us want to be exhausted. But can we do that when so much is going on in the world?

Let’s call this a third option: being grounded and engaged with the world.

Let’s talk about it.

The Costs of the False Choice

If we think that we either have to be engaged and spiraling with anxiety, or disengaged for the sake of our sanity … then we are forced to make a choice between the two. But maybe that’s a false choice.

There’s a cost to this false choice, no matter what we choose:

Cost of Over-engaged: Constantly scrolling, constantly feeling anxious or enraged, not getting enough sleep, not being able to focus on any meaningful work or anything that requires us to be calm with a battery that isn’t drained. That’s a real cost beyond our peace of mind (which is already a huge thing) … we can’t focus. That drains us of our joy and life purpose.
Cost of Disengaged: Checking out can feel like relief, but it has some big costs as well — including being excluded from the conversation about how we want the world to be, what our future is going to be like, and what solutions there might be. We also become disconnected from people, and remove our agency.

I’m not judging either of these — I’ve done them both, and they both seem like reasonable choices. I’m not saying either are bad … I just want to acknowledge their costs.

Grounded and Engaged

First, let’s be honest: news about what’s happening in the world can bring up anxiety, anger, frustration, overwhelm, sadness and powerlessness in all of us. This is the reality.

So what we need to do is find a way to ground ourselves when these emotions come up.

Here’s a simple method (simple, but it needs lots of practice):

Acknowledge that you’re feeling stuff: this is something you can do when you read the news or scroll a feed. Be very intentional as you do so, and try to notice when your emotions are getting riled up.
Notice how your feeling in your body: People engage with the thoughts about things, but don’t notice the physical sensations of the body as it’s happening. If you’re frustrated and angry, where is that located physically in your body? What does it feel like? Can you get curious about the sensations without engaging with the thoughts?
Breathe and soothe yourself: Take a few deep, slow, soothing breaths. This starts to slow down your nervous system. Let your tensed muscles relax. Remind yourself that you’re safe and there’s nothing to fear.
Remind yourself of what you can control in this moment: You can’t control the entire world, and you don’t need to. You only need to focus on the power you have right now, in this moment — to breathe, to soothe yourself, to appreciate the beauty of the world that’s around you.
Steps beyond: You can also talk with others about this, and have a conversation, once you’re a bit calmer. And you can make a list of a few things you can do in the next couple of weeks to engage.

And that’s the engaged part of grounded and engaged — you can have conversations and take small actions. You can read a little more and get a bit more educated.

You can also talk to people who have different opinions, and try to understand them and have compassion for the fear and anxiety they’re feeling as well.

You can get involved with organizations trying to make change, as you practice your groundedness.

You can also realize when you need a break from being engaged, and take care of yourself. Replenish your resources before getting burned out.

You don’t need to exhaust yourself — and in fact, I’d argue that you’re better of not doing so. The world is a better place when you’re grounded, and when you get engaged from a place of feeling like your battery isn’t drained.

How would you like to practice?

The Practice of Doing Less, On Purpose

Fri, 09 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

By Leo Babauta

These days, a lot of people I talk to are feeling burnout — exhaustion from endless work that can often feel pointless, overloaded lives with not enough restorative rest, constant replying to messages and overwhelmed by information, drained by social media scrolling, and inundated with stressful world news.

If you’re feeling this, I’m going to share a skill that sounds simple, but can be deceptively difficult: doing less, on purpose.

What I’m talking about is doing less as a deliberate practice, not because of a failure to keep up. We’re making a deliberate choice to do less, not a forced choice because you’re burned out and can’t keep your head above water.

Doing less is arguably harder than trying to do everything from fear of missing out, or because you’re trying to optimize every single thing in your life. It’s harder because it takes some letting go, and a willingness to tolerate discomfort, and a willingness to do things a little differently than everyone else.

Let’s take a look.

The Deliberate Practice of Doing Less

What would doing less look like, as a practice? It’s something you could do every day, as opposed to just purging everything all at once.

For example, you might practice:

Picking one thing from your todo list and deliberately choosing not to do it today. Push it back until next week.
Limiting yourself to only a certain number of tasks each day — let’s say 5 tasks.
Deliberately choosing to stop working at a certain time, and honoring that boundary. (Let’s say 5pm, or 4pm.)
Looking at your calendar and deciding to uncommit to one thing each week.
Challenging yourself to say No to all invitations, if your schedule is overloaded, for a month.
Creating unstructured time in your schedule, and not letting yourself fill it with a bunch of busywork or meetings.

Do any of these resonate with you? What do you think you’d get out of it?

I should note that the thing that stand in the way of doing less is usually fear. The fear of falling behind, of people noticing you’re doing less. We don’t want to ignore this fear, but the most important thing is to acknowledge that it is simply fear. We can sit with it, let ourselves soothe the fear, and not let it drive our lives. Be kind to the fear, but it’s not in charge.

The Space Created by Doing Less

What’s the point of all of this? We create space that we desperately need.

What you’ll likely notice about this space you create:

You have some downtime to actually restore your mental and physical health. You start to feel more energized and motivated once you’re more restored.
You have time to move your body, to prepare healthy food, and to do self-care things you might be neglecting.
You feel a sense of being able to breathe. It’s an incredible thing to feel this.

In the end, doing less isn’t about optimizing your life and being more productive in the long run. It’s about living a life of sanity, cultivating that inner peace you’ve been craving, and enjoying your days more.

So my invitation to you, my friends, is to choose one thing to remove this week, instead of adding more and more.

Finding Steadiness When the Ground Feels Shaky

Fri, 02 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

By Leo Babauta

These days, the world (and our lives) can feel out of control — alarming news, a wild political situation, global warming and economic markets all in turmoil.

When things feel this shaky and out of control, our emotions can spiral and it throws our lives into chaos. What can we do?

The practice I’m going to share with you today is how to find internal steadiness, when everything around you is unsteady.

The practice is to focus on attending to our internal state. To find calm and peace no matter what’s happening externally.

Let’s dive into it!

Focusing on What We Can Control

We can’t control the markets, what’s happening politically, how other people are acting, the ongoing climate change crisis, or the AI revolution. When things feel out of control, it can send us spinning.

So our practice will focus on what we can control: putting our attention on our internal state. We can’t necessarily control our inner state — if it’s in turmoil, we can’t always stop that — but just by resting our attention gently on the inner state, things can start to calm.

So let’s talk about how to practice.

How to Practice

First, just notice that you’re feeling shaky. Maybe you’re feeling a lot of uncertainty and overwhelm, maybe frustration or anger, maybe you’re feeling shaken up and in turmoil. Just notice it, and name it: what are you feeling?

Don’t get caught up in thoughts about what you’re feeling, or judgments. Just notice that it’s there, and name it. Don’t add a whole narrative, or catastrophize about it. It’s not a big deal to feel something.

Next, just rest your attention gently on the sensations of the feeling. That means notice how the feeling feels in your body, as physical sensations. Does it feel tight, does it move around? Just bring awareness to the physical sensation, and keep your awareness there — stay with it.

Breathe deeply and slowly, soothing your nervous system.

Let yourself settle down in the moment with whatever you’re feeling. It’s OK to feel turmoil — can you sit calmly in the center of the storm of what you’re feeling? This takes practice, so don’t expect to be any good at it at first. But you’ll start to get the hang of it, if you practice a few times a day for just a minute or two.

Slowly, you’ll develop the ability to sit calmly and openly in the middle of any storm.

And that’s when you’ll feel powerful: because you don’t need the world to change to find your inner calm. It’s always there, always accessible, and always beautiful.

Bonus Coaching Calls: Small Commitment to Create Action in Your Life

Mon, 28 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

By Leo Babauta

I’m a big proponent of a small effort that creates a big amount of change. A big part of my Zen Habits journey (and teachings) over the years is discovering and sharing small things that make a huge difference in our lives.

In my Fearless Living Academy, I share small practices that help people create transformative change. I ask people to make a small time commitment each day, but really commit themselves to it. If you can do that, you’ll see huge change.

This month, I’m offering 2 bonus 20-minute coaching calls to new members who sign up for Fearless Living Academy, as a way to help create that big, lasting change in a short amount of time.

Here’s the offer:

Sign up for Fearless Living Academy in October; and
You’ll get a bonus 20-minute coaching call with me to set you up for success
And you’ll get a 2nd bonus 20-minute coaching call with a Fearless Living Academy coach

I’ve been doing these coaching calls as a test with FLA members, and I’ve seen great results from these short calls. I’d love to do one with you, and help you take mindful action in your life.

Let’s do this: Sign up for Fearless Living Academy here

The Human Habits That Still Matter

Fri, 25 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

By Leo Babauta

These days, you can’t avoid hearing and thinking about AI — it’s all around us, and it’s taking over the world. So much of our lives are being automated … which in some ways is breathtaking.

In other ways, I think we can all feel that we’re losing something.

This is a moment to stop and reflect: what is important to remain human? What human skills do we want to protect?

Let’s explore some of those very human habits that we can’t let fall to the bots.

The Habits That Matter

While AI can generate a lot of amazing things, and help us in incredible ways … there are some things that are ours, as humans:

Being present: The AI bots can’t actually be present with us. That’s for humans to do with each other. There’s something in our nervous system that gets soothed when we’re in the loving presence of someone we care about. There’s something that opens in us when we’re present with someone we’re learning about.
Caring: One thing we notice from AI generated stuff is that it’s very intelligent … but there’s no feeling that it cares. Of course not — because AI doesn’t care. That’s for us humans to do, and it’s incredibly important in our lives. We can’t lose connection to what we care deeply about.
Sitting with discomfort: I think technology is slowly seeping away our ability to be OK with discomfort. Our phones, computers, social media, AI, and the abundance of entertainment means that we can be comfortable all the time. But it’s a very human capacity to allow ourselves to sit in the middle of discomfort. And it matters: it’s how we expand, connect with each other, have difficult conversations where we disagree, and meet our resistance to doing hard things.
Choosing what matters: Sometimes, we want things to be chosen for us, because we have so much decision fatigue. But AI can’t choose what matters, because nothing matters to it. That’s for us — we have to think deeply about what matters to us, and choose to step in that direction.

The Habit of Being Human

All of this is a choice: we can choose to care, to sit with discomfort, to be present with the world and each other, and decide for ourselves what matters.

And it’s a choice we can make a habit — something we do regularly, because we care about these human things. Because they matter to us.

I encourage us to make it a habit to do our focused work — the work that matters to us — in the presence of another human being. And have conversations with them, even if it’s uncomfortable. Go deeper, and discover something new together, without reaching for AI.

Notice when you reach for technology when you’re uncomfortable, bored, feeling resistance or uncertainty. And then turn towards that, as a human habit. Feel it. Only we can feel boredom, and sit with that discomfort. In this place, the deepest discoveries of humanity have been made. What would Aristotle, the Buddha, Epictetus, Shakespeare, Tolstoy, Jane Austen, Newton have created, if they had technology to keep them from being bored?

Choose to care about what you work on, what you put your attention on, who you spend your time with. Find a deeper appreciation for each of these, in each moment. Let yourself be filled with wonder, that great human experience that’s always available to us.

Slow down, and let yourself savor human connection and weirdness and huge loving hearts.

These are the human habits I urge you to care about. Automation will eat the tasks. But we are so much wilder than our tasks.

How to Stop Trying to Optimize Your Life

Fri, 18 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

By Leo Babauta

These days, so many people are trying to optimize their lives in every way — and I’m as guilty as anyone. Life optimization seems to be the theme for many of us.

But the thing is … it never ends. You can spend months trying to optimize every facet of your life … and you will still feel like more needs to be done. That’s because underneath the optimization mindset is the hidden message: My life as is at the moment isn’t good enough.

We want to optimize our health because our fear is that we’re not going to be able to handle the future without it. We want to optimize our productivity because we judge ourselves for not being more productive. We want to optimize our morning routines, sleep routines, finances, and more … because we fear that we’re not doing good enough at life.

This mindset stems from a fundamental dissatisfaction with our lives and ourselves.

We’re always looking toward a better future, instead of just living with gratitude in the life we already have in front of us.

This comes at a cost: we put pressure on ourselves, it stresses us out, we are comparing our lives to everyone else on social media, we’re rushing (because going slow isn’t optimal), we always feel behind, never done. Does any of that sound familiar?

So what can we do instead?

Let’s lay out some credos of the Unoptimized Life.

Let some things be sub-optimal. It’s worth asking yourself why you want everything to be optimal — is there a fear that if it’s not the most optimal, you’ll be doing things wrong or failing? Entire industries have been formed on people wanting to optimize everything, and being afraid of missing out on what’s the absolute best. It’s OK to be inefficient or suboptimal, if it means hours of less stress. Have fun with a task, enjoy the activity, don’t worry about perfection. Wander and explore.
Let yourself do things without an outcome in mind. What if you could start something and not need to get to a certain place. I’m learning the game of Go right now, and it’s fun to just learn for the sake of learning, without needing to “get good” or achieve a certain rank.
Practice getting to “good enough.” Not everything needs to be absolutely perfect — in fact, most things don’t. You might explore getting to good enough … and then stopping there, and being satisfied with that.
Don’t focus much on metrics. Sure, some things need to be tracked, but not everything does. Lots of meaningful things are better without being tracked or measured for progress.
The big one: from improvement to appreciation. Instead of asking, “How can I make this even better?” … you might ask, “What’s already beautiful about this?” The practice of appreciation is deep and powerful.

Let yourself be human. You’re not an improvement project. You don’t have to always upgrade.

Growth is fun, but having a death grip on progress and perfection takes all the fun out of it. Let it be joyful! Let it come from curiosity and enjoyment, rather than all the ways we feel inadequate.

And practice just being here, without having to get anywhere.

The Phone Addiction Loop, & How to Break It

Sat, 12 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

By Leo Babauta

I’ve talked to close to a dozen people recently who have been struggling with phone addiction — it seems to be widespread, across all generations these days.

It’s not just a trivial problem … it can cause sleep problems, have us fall behind on the things that are important to us, miss deadlines, get overwhelmed by how behind we are.

And maybe just as important: it’s not how many of us want to live our lives. We don’t want to be trapped in a phone addiction loop. We want to be doing things that feel meaningful and joyful.

Let’s talk about the phone addiction loop, and then how to apply the habit ideas I’ve learned over the years to break the loop.

How the Loop Works

It’s a fairly basic habit mechanism:

You have a trigger (let’s say stress, overwhelm, boredom, feeling behind on things).
You reach for the phone
You get a quick reward.

And repeat. That’s the cycle, and it works that way for most addictive habits (food, alcohol, games, Youtube, social media, smoking, drugs).

So how do we change this?

First, Ask Why

Before you start to change something like this, ask yourself why you want to make the change. Is it just because you think you should, and you’re judging yourself?

If you’re coming from a place of “should,” you’ll just give up as soon as it gets hard.

If you’re doing it because you think there’s something wrong with you, and you’re hard on yourself … you’re only going to get discouraged and give up.

So instead, find a positive reason that’s meaningful to you. For example:

I want to get good sleep and feel good during the day
I have some creative work I want to get done
I want to be more present with my loved ones
I want to read more books
I want to get more active and take good care of my body

What would be your meaningful reason? Write it down.

Then Create a Commitment & a Moat

Now make a commitment … not just to yourself but to others. Promise a close friend, your partner, an accountability group. Tell them your plan. Commit to accountability.

Then create a moat — something that makes it hard to get to the phone when the trigger happens. This will allow you to have awareness that your addiction loop has been triggered, and then allow you to do the next phase (below).

Some examples of moats:

Put the phone in a different room, so you have to walk all the way across the house/office to get it. Leave it there, and only give yourself 2 minutes in the room with it.
Give it to your spouse/friend/coworker and say, “Don’t give it back to me until (5pm, tomorrow morning, etc.).”
Use a blocker app (or device like the Brick) but let someone else set the password so you don’t know it. Have it set to block you on a schedule.
Lock it in a drawer/safe with a key, give it to someone else.

You might also make the phone less attractive: put it in greyscale mode, turn off notifications, and delete the most tempting apps.

The idea isn’t that you can never use your phone — it’s that the friction to use it is greatly increased, so that you are more intentional, and you know when the trigger is happening.

Deal with the Trigger

The secret sauce is not just to stop yourself from using it, but to find new ways of dealing with the trigger — usually boredom, anxiety/stress, overwhelm, or feeling bad about yourself.

If you’re feeling that, instead of using your phone to cope … what if you could find a healthier coping mechanism?

It’s important to bring awareness to when the trigger happens … when it does:

Notice what you’re feeling when you want to reach for your phone. Bored? Feeling stressed, overwhelmed, anxious? Feeling bad about yourself or your life?
Take a few breaths. Let your nervous system be soothed. If the feeling is intense, get up and move around, distract yourself with something else. You’re creating a tiny pause, where you have choice.
Now try to choose an alternative to cope with the feeling, other than your phone.

What alternatives? You might experiment to see what works for you — throw a bunch of things at the wall and see what sticks!

Here are a few ideas:

Deep breathing
Go for a walk
Do some exercise — pushups, yoga, etc.
Talk to someone
Make a gratitude journal — or just journal about your feelings

You might find your own ideas as well. You’re practicing being OK with a bit of discomfort, and finding a way to deal with it that feels healthy.

The Importance of Grace & Compassion

This isn’t going to be simple — like food, a phone isn’t something most of us can just quit. We have to find a balance in our lives, between being able to function, and overdoing it.

We’re interrupting the loop, instead of relying on willpower. We might even set some phone-free periods that will start to feel refreshing.

But we might slip up, and that’s OK. It’s a process, not a switch we just flip. We’re trying to break the loop rather than let it be a repeated cycle. Sometimes, we might not do so well, and in those cases, it’s important to give ourselves some grace. Be compassionate, not harsh.

You can do this!

When the Work Feels Hard

Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

By Leo Babauta

Sometimes, it just feels like the work you’ve got in front of you is hard: you aren’t feeling up to it, you want to turn to distractions.

That’s completely normal — most of have these days. Or weeks, or even months, when things just feel hard. It’s important not to be too tough on ourselves, and give ourselves grace for not being super fired up and productive all the time. We’re human.

That said, how do we deal with this feeling that the work is hard? There isn’t a simple answer, so I’m going to share a handful of ideas with you today.

1: Take a temperature check

As humans, we have so many things that might affect whether we feel motivated or not. It’s good to do a bit of a reflection, and see what might be contributing. That’ll help you sort it out.

Some things to check on:

How’s your sleep been lately?
Are you feeling high stress from your life, or high anxiety in general? Is your life outside of work super busy or chaotic?
Have you been moving your body, in ways that make you feel generally healthy? Do you have health issues affecting you?
Has something happened that got you feeling low? Is it possible you’re suffering from mild (or worse) depression?
Is there something about the work you’re doing that’s scary, or that gives you a lot of resistance or overwhelm, that you’re trying to avoid? Are there unknowns that are making it feel tough?
Anything distracting you that you’re obsessed with? Anything weighing on you heavily? Any grief or anger?

You might have more than one of these be true, or maybe it’s something else. The key idea is to take a brief assessment — be honest with yourself.

Once you have an idea of what might be making things hard, it can help to start to address them. If you have depression, get some mental health support. If you are having some emotional issues, talk to somebody, or do some journaling, to process the emotions. If there’s fear or overwhelm, can you make it smaller so it’s less scary and overwhelming?

There might not be easy answers, but at least taking a look at the issues and starting to address them is the way to go. Small steps. The idea of “work is too hard” is the symptom, not the problem.

2: Let yourself play

If work is feeling too hard … then let yourself play. Take a break from the hard things and then go have some fun doing something else! It might be work, or it might be getting outside and exploring, without a phone. Or reading something fun.

Then, after a bit of a break (for an hour, or a day, or more if needed and possible) … come back to the work but bring a lighter sense of play.

There isn’t a right way to bring play to your work … play with it! Be lighthearted, and have fun.

3: Stay in relationship with the work

Just because the work is hard, doesn’t mean you have to just walk away from it. You might not be able to completely go full in with it … but you can stay connected to the work.

Stay in relationship with the work — meaning don’t just drop off.

That might mean just doing a little work for the next few days, whatever you can manage. It might mean letting people know you can’t get things done when they’re expecting it, and renegotiating deadlines or other dates.

It could also mean taking a part of your work that feels meaningful — just a chunk of it — and going somewhere else to work on it. Go to a coffee shop, or a park, or a library. Play some relaxing music (in your earbuds, if you’re in public!).

Or let yourself go for a long walk, and just reflect on things. It’s a way to go deeper without doing the part that feels too hard.

4: Work your way back

If you do fall away from the work a bit, it can be hard to come back to it. That’s OK, it’s just a bit like going uphill instead of walking on normal ground. Sometimes we have to go uphill, right?

The idea is to find a way to ease yourself back into it. It’s harder coming back, so take small steps. Don’t expect yourself to be running right away.

When I come back after falling off, I give myself gentle days, and just do some of the easy stuff. Small batches, with breaks. Make it lighthearted.

What would be an easy way to bring yourself back?

The Mental Habits We Practice the Most

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

By Leo Babauta

There’s an old idea, often misattributed to Aristotle, that “we are what we repeatedly do.” That idea is true of our physical acts, but also of our mental habits.

What we’re practicing the most is what we think every day, and that becomes who we are.

For example, if we’re constantly complaining (even just in our own minds), that’s what we’re practicing all the time … and that shapes our experience of life, and how we impact other people.

The mental habits we’re practicing all day long are incredibly important in our lives — and yet we’re often not even aware we’re doing them.

Some of the most common mental habits that can have negative impacts on our lives:

Complaint
Blaming others
Telling ourselves it’s OK to put something important off for one more day
Deciding we need to check email, messages, social media one more time before focusing on the things that matter
Self-criticism
Judging other people
Worrying about what everyone else thinks
Ruminating on past mistakes or past hurts
Limiting ourselves by how we see ourselves (I’m not smart enough to do that)
Worrying about the future or possible failure
Stressing ourselves out with all the things we think we need to do
Getting stuck in indecision because it’s overwhelming or hard to choose the “right” decision

Do any of these feel familiar? They all have a big impact on our lives if we’re practicing them over and over, every day.

Let’s talk about how to shift these patterns by practicing new ones.

Practicing Different Mental Habits

The idea is to come up with replacement habits, and to practice them every day, as often as you can.

Start by noticing which negative mental patterns you practice regularly — do you notice any of the ones above?

Try to spot them as they happen: if you’re complaining, can you notice when you’re in the act of complaining?

Then practice the replacement mental habit. If you do this, you’ll start to replace the old habit with the new one, and it will start to become your default over time. It takes concerted effort, but the payoff is huge.

Some ideas for replacement mental habits:

Gratitude and appreciation instead of complaint
Taking responsibility for your part, instead of blaming others
Putting important things as a priority that you’re committed to, instead of putting it off for one more day
Focusing on the things that matter first, before allowing yourself to check email, messages, social media
Self-appreciation, instead of self-criticism
Appreciating the great quality of other people, instead of judging them
Caring about what you think, instead of worrying about what everyone else thinks
Acceptance, instead of ruminating on past mistakes or past hurts
Expanding our view of ourselves, instead of limiting ourselves by how we see ourselves
Focusing on what we can control, instead of worrying about the future or possible failure
Focusing on one thing right now, instead of stressing ourselves out with all the things we think we need to do
Making a choice from the gut, instead of getting stuck in indecision because it’s overwhelming or hard to choose the “right” decision

You might have other ideas for replacements — that’s OK, these are just ideas. Decide for yourself what would be most helpful.

In the end, it’s about deciding what we want to practice every day — the things that will lead to the lives we want, or that will keep us stuck.

The September Health & Fitness Challenge

Mon, 24 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

By Leo Babauta

One of the hardest things to do as we create a better life is to show up for yourself regularly.

But we can train that. And one of my favorite ways to do that is with a health & fitness challenge — where you commit to showing up for your body and yourself every day. And prove to yourself that you (and your health) matter.

In September, I’m launching a 6-week Health & Fitness Challenge for my Fearless Living Academy members … and I’d love for you to join us!

Here’s how the challenge works:

Sign up for Fearless Living Academy and then join the challenge in our Circle space (our community forum).
Commit yourself to something every day for 6 weeks. You choose: some fitness challenge (yoga every day, running and weightlifting alternately every day, eating 5 vegetables a day, etc.).
You get a video each week from me, meant to help you practice showing up for your commitment.
Hold yourself accountable each week, and share how it’s going with the challenge group.
Learn, grow, get stronger, and build the muscle of showing up!

It’ll be fun!

What You’ll Walk Away With

Here’s what we’re aiming for you to get out of this:

You’ll learn about what it’s like to show up for your body, and learn what gets in the way (and how to handle that).
You’ll create a non-negotiable habit that you chose and tested over the course of 6 weeks.
You’ll start to recognize your patterns, and your own sabotage triggers (travel, stress, low motivation days), because you’ll have hit them during the challenge and practiced navigating them.
You’ll learn a repeatable framework for creating any kind of practice for yourself going forward.

This challenge, then, becomes proof-of-concept for how you build solid habits in general.

This isn’t a fitness challenge that focuses on streaks or perfection, nor one that is focused on a specific outcome (lose weight, etc.).

This is processed-focused, and it’s a practice of fearlessness — show up for yourself even when it’s challenging.

Six Weekly Themes

Our structure is to have a new theme for each of the 6 weeks:

Commit & Start: Pick your daily action, and make it small and doable. Declare it publicly, and get started!
Show Up with Curiosity: Start to explore the habit, and bring curiosity — see what you can discover and appreciate about the habit process.
Find Your Resistance: Identify exactly when/why you want to skip it (mornings? travel? mood?) — get curious, not critical.
Build Your System: Design your environment. Remove friction, set up new reminders, find workarounds for your obstacles.
Push Through the Middle: The motivation dip often happens by week 5 … this week is about identity (“I’m someone who does this”) over motivation.
Reflect: Reflect on the 6 weeks, decide what stays post-challenge, celebrate the proof of what you care about.

It’ll take 6 weeks to build this deeper self-trust that you’ll show up for yourself Not perfectly. And it won’t be easy. But you’ll practice curiosity, courage, and a willingness to learn in the midst of the challenge.

Are you ready to join us? Join Fearless Living Academy for the September Health & Fitness Challenge, and let’s start.

One Tab, One Task, One Breath

Fri, 21 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

By Leo Babauta

Let’s do a quick test: how many tabs do you have open right now? How many apps on your phone or computer? How many tasks are competing for your attention right now?

Let’s also be honest about something: most of us are working in a constant state of fragmentation — so much so that it feels completely normal, and don’t even notice the effects it has on us.

I blame the environment rather than the individual person — but that said, I think there are things we can do to change our environment and reclaim our focus and our sanity.

The Fragmentation Problem

Our work environments have us constantly surrounded by things trying to claim our attention. This creates busyness and fragmented attention, and sacrifices depth and focus.

Every email, every message, every open tab is another claim on our attention. It drains our cognitive bandwidth.

As a result, we’re always half-present. Half in, no matter what we’re doing.

And again, it’s not a failure of you as a person — it’s just the environment that has been created all around you.

The Three-Part Practice

We can reclaim that bandwidth and focus with a three-part practice …

One Tab: Close every tab and app that isn’t the work you have to do right now. You might have a million tabs open — save them or close them. You don’t need them all right now. Close any open apps that you don’t need. Put your phone in silent mode and put it somewhere else as well. Clear everything so you can reclaim your attention.

One Task: Before you sit down to do something, name the one thing you’re going to actually focus on. You might need to open your task list and take a look, but choose something. Commit to focusing on it. It can also help to set a timer, for 10 or 20 or 30 minutes, to remind you that you’re focusing on one task right now.

One Breath: Before you begin on your one task, take a slow, deep, conscious breath. Be fully present with the breath, and let it release any tension you have. Let it be a prayer to start your task with focus and intention.

This breath signals that you’re present for this one task. Everything else is put on hold — in fact, there’s nothing else in the universe but this one thing.

This is a simple, powerful ritual to signal your conscious intention and to practice the focus that you’d like to have in your life.

The Practice Needs to Be Simple

With everything demanding our attention, we need to simplify in order to reshape our focus.

That’s why this practice is so simple. We narrow everything down to one tab, one task, one breath. And in doing so, we are retraining our brains to simplify.

This is radical simplicity — not necessarily doing less, but being fully present with what we choose to do.

What Solitude Taught Me That Productivity Never Could

Fri, 14 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

By Leo Babauta

If I could go back in time to talk to myself when I was in my 20s … the biggest piece of advice I’d give myself is to learn to sit with myself without distractions.

It’s the most underrated skill of your 20s, and technology is training it out of us. Hear me out!

For much of my life, I’ve wanted to be super productive, come up with the perfect system and set of tools, and optimize everything. This turned out to be a never-ending game that can be exhausting and lead to meaninglessness as you never get to done and never get to perfect.

Don’t get me wrong — I do think there’s use to being productive, if you have meaningful goals and don’t just churn out tasks for productivity’s sake. I’m not knocking being able to focus and get things done.

But in today’s world, we’re facing some tough challenges:

We’re always online, constantly distracted
Social media has perfected the algorithm to get us addicted
We shop for things and eat super-palatable foods to fill the void we’re feeling
The world is increasingly feeling chaotic and hostile
We’re feeling powerless, and often unhappy with ourselves

This isn’t easy stuff to deal with. Productivity won’t address any of that.

Enter solitude. Let’s talk about it.

How Solitude Teach Us Deeper Lessons

In the midst of the chaos, distraction, addictions, and powerlessness … we have the opportunity to learn and grow in powerful ways.

One of the most powerful ways is to shut it all off, and to learn to be alone in silence. Not always alone, and not always disconnected … but for intentional periods.

For example, take a daily walk for an hour without any devices or music. Or sit in meditation for brief periods sprinkled through the day. Or eat meals in silence without technology or distractions.

What this will start to do is to have us notice our tendency to reach for technology, distractions, food, drugs, drink and more. We’ll start to see the urges and cravings. We don’t need to judge them, just notice, like we’re noticing how things work.

Then, in the silence and solitude, we can just sit with the urges and cravings, and any other feelings we notice. Just sit and let ourselves feel them, without needing them to go away.

If you can do this, it’ll be a game-changer. I wish I had learned this in my 20s.

Here are a few other things I learned through this solitude practice:

How to regulate my emotions when I was feeling lonely, sad, dissatisfied with myself, upset, anxious or overwhelmed.
How to start to appreciate myself — who I am even when I’m not being productive or making other people happy. My inner qualities, which are always there. This self-appreciation is the antidote to self-dissatisfaction.
How to appreciate the present moment, without extra bells and whistles. We turn to online distractions and social media, food and substances, because we think there’s something wrong with our present-moment experiences without all of that. But if we can appreciate the amazing moments as they are, we don’t need the other stuff.
How to use the challenging moments and emotions to open. Usually these challenging moments and difficult emotions close us down — but we can practice opening when they come to us. That means relaxing the body and nervous system, and learning to find the opportunity in the challenging moment, the appreciation and love.

These are powerful lessons that I encourage everyone, young or old, to sit with. Alone, and in wonderful silence.

Habits to Have a Baseline of Happiness

Fri, 07 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

By Leo Babauta

Someone told me recently that I’m one of the only people they know that seems to have a baseline of happiness. Most of the people they know, including themselves, are stressed, angry, anxious, overwhelmed, sad, etc.

It made me start to reflect: is this actually true? And if so, why is it true for me?

And I think it is true. I’m definitely not happy all the time — I have all the emotions everyone else has — but I do think my baseline is one of happiness and peace.

So why do I have this baseline? Part of it might be that I got lucky — I was born with brain chemistry that helps me. I think my mom also has a baseline of happiness, so it could be her genetics, or how she raised me. (I also had a dad who very much didn’t have happiness as his baseline, and his parenting definitely gave me some trauma to overcome.)

But I also think I’ve built on that with my own habits, mental and otherwise, that have helped me to have this baseline. I think these habits can help anyone, even if you weren’t blessed with good chemistry or a loving parent.

Let’s take a look.

My Habits of Happiness

I’ll start by saying that these won’t cure everything, nor are they easy fixes. They’re mental habits, and they take time to cultivate.

But here are the mental habits I’ve found to be helpful:

Slow down & savor: This is the idea that Zen Habits is built on — don’t always try to rush through your day, to get on to the next thing. Instead, slow down, and savor moments as often as you can remember. Every moment is something to be savored, if we can just wake up to that.
Be fascinated: So many of us get bored with life, or take the wonders of life for granted. Instead, what if we could get curious about the things we barely notice anymore? What if we could let our fascination lead us, instead of going through the motions?
Everything is a lesson: When I’m frustrated with someone, or frustrated with myself, or things are not going the way I’d like … I have learned to see what I’m facing as a lesson in deeper wisdom. I try to pause and notice what this person, or this moment, has to teach me. My deepest lessons come from the hardest struggles.
Enjoy progress, not only the result: I’ve come to enjoy every little bit of progress that I make. If I am inching along on a project, if my fitness journey is taking way longer than I hoped it would … I try to see what progress I’ve already made, and celebrate that. Even if it’s just a few steps. It means that I’m encouraging myself along the way, and that the end point is just one joyous point among many.
Feel but don’t dwell: I find that it’s important to feel all the feels. If I get sad, I let myself really feel heartbroken. If I get angry, I let myself rage (not at another person though). I feel all of it. But then I’m done. It’s not helpful to dwell on the thoughts that cause the feelings.
Try not to take things too seriously!: I like to take life lightly. I try to laugh at myself, and make a little fun in heavier situations (when appropriate!). This means that life can be lighthearted, which is always more fun!
Practice gratitude & wonder: I started my journey toward happiness with a simple gratitude practice — I just listed 10 things I was grateful for that day. Often they were the same things (my family, my health, nature) but what this did was have me looking throughout the day for things I might take for granted but that I was glad was in my life. Later, I expanded that to seeing things that filled me with wonder. This is how we appreciate the miracle of everyday life.

This isn’t meant to be a comprehensive list — nor do you have to do all of these to be happy. They’ve just helped me tremendously over the years.

The hard part, of course, is forming these habits. Here’s what I’d recommend:

Pick one and set an intention to practice with it every day. Set reminders on your phone, and posted around your living and working spaces.
Try to catch moments when you can practice that mental habit. It’ll be hard at first, but you’ll start to catch it more and more.
Set a 5-minute review habit for the end of each day, when you try to notice when you practiced during the day and when you might have missed it. It’ll help you get better each day.
Do this for at least a month per mental habit. You’ll drop off a little at the middle of the month, but then try to recommit yourself to it and that’s when the real learning happens.

Be patient. It takes time. These are mental habits I’ve developed over years of practice. But they are so worth it.

The Illusion of Being Behind

Fri, 31 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

By Leo Babauta

There was once a young man who decided that in order to feel good enough, he had to do a bunch of things. And stay on top of those things. And do a good job at each of them.

This, he hoped, would protect him from the dreaded feeling of not being good enough.

And so this young man did his best: he took on tasks and projects and managing his life the best he knew how. He made lists, and set a timeline for himself.

The timeline was fascinating … every time he started doing something, he would start to see a magical future in which he did it really well. From this magical future he could imagine, he’d come up with a timeline for how fast he should progress with a goal or habit or project. Then set his list so he could try to meet that timeline.

But then life would inevitably be messier than his imagined magical future, and he wouldn’t be able to keep up with things the way he’d imagined.

And when this happened, he’d tell himself, “I’m so behind!”

This feeling of being behind … it was a pressure that he always felt. Because he was always behind.

So he rushed through everything that he did, trying to catch up. It mostly felt impossible, even though he kept working into the night. Sometimes, for a brief moment, he’d catch up … then fall behind again.

Then one day, out of desperation, he asked the local wise man about this. “How do I stop being so behind?” he asked.

The wise man asked him, “What would you do if the concept of being behind didn’t exist?”

The young man thought about it, and replied, “Hmm … I guess I would just do what I could? I might even enjoy it, and be able to slow down a bit. I might be able to stop working at a reasonable hour, and not be thinking about it even in my non-work hours. Yeah, I would love that actually.”

The wise man gave him some herbs to mix into his tea. And said, “Once you drink this special tea, you will no longer have the concept of ‘behind’ in your mind.”

And so it happened. The young man drank the tea, and never again thought about being behind.

View Hacking: Shifting Your View of Other People

Fri, 24 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

By Leo Babauta

Let’s imagine a scenario where you are standing in front of everyone, at your own party, surrounded by friends and family … but you’re afraid of their judgments.

You’re afraid one family member thinks you’re wasting your life, another might think you’re lazy, another might think you don’t have nice enough clothes, another might think you’re not in good enough shape. You don’t know that they have these judgments, but you’re afraid they might.

Stressful right? This is why people get social anxiety — we never know what people might be thinking, how they might be judging us.

I’m going to share something that we’ll call “view hacking” — basically, changing our view of other people, so that we can have a very different experience, way less stressful.

Let’s dive in.

Why We Stress About Other People

In the scenario I mentioned, what makes it stressful to be in front of all these people you know?

It’s the fear that they’re judging you. The fear of letting others down, of not fitting in, of being rejected. We don’t know if they’re judging us, but we’re afraid that they are.

So the view that we have is something like: these people are judging me.

It’s possible that’s true, but think about viewing the situation as a minefield for possible judgment and embarrassment — stressful, right?

The stress comes from this view.

The view that the people might be judging us, that we might be embarrassed, that the whole situation is dangerous … that’s the view that causes stress.

When we’re frustrated by other people, anxious about them, or having other kinds of problems like that … the stress comes from the view that we have of them. You might journal about it to try to uncover the view you have that’s stressing you out. It’s powerful.

Shift the View

Once we’ve identified the view, what can we do about it?

Well, first we should acknowledge that nothing needs to be done. It’s OK to be stressed about, frustrated by, anxious about other people.

But if we’d like to be less stressed about them, we can shift the view. Come up with a new view that feels more empowering and less stressful.

Some examples:

These people love and support me
I’m grateful to have a connection with this person
They’re trying their best, and have beautiful hearts
It would be fun to play with this person!
If they get upset, it’s a chance for a deeper connection with them

These are just a few examples — can you find a new view that would make you feel less stressed about people?

Once you have the view, it’s time to practice: write it down, and remind yourself of the new view whenever you’re feeling that stress. Let yourself really feel the new view, as if it were absolute truth. And then relate to this person or these people in this new way.

It takes a while to shift the view. But if you are intentional about it, the shift can be profound.

Stay Open to Possibility

Mon, 20 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

By Leo Babauta

When people are considering a scary decision that requires them to step into the unknown, one of the biggest obstacles is our past experiences.

If you’ve failed or been hurt in the past, those experiences tend to hold a lot of weight — and we let those failures dictate what we’re going to do in the future.

I’m here to invite you to stay open to new possibility, rather than let the past failures dictate what you’re going to do.

Let’s take my Fearless Mastery coaching cohorts as an example — maybe you’re considering joining, in order to free yourself of old patterns, to unlock new possibility, and to start to move something meaningful forward for yourself.

But maybe you’ve joined things in the past, and you didn’t stick to them as much as you were hoping you would. Maybe you paid good money but didn’t do the work to get the value out of the program you were hoping for.

That would be a painful memory … and as you consider whether or not to join Fearless Mastery, maybe that memory holds a lot of weight. You think, “Hmmm, maybe I better not waste my money again, I’ll probably just let myself down again.”

And so your past becomes a weight, holding you back from new possibility.

Consider whether you’ve been doing that lately — holding yourself back because of past failure.

Past experiences can be valuable, in that we can learn from them. We can try to see where we went wrong — what was going on under the surface — and use that information to grow.

But instead, they often become weights, holding us back.

I’m here to invite you to let go of the past failures and painful experiences, and open yourself to new possibility. Let yourself create something new.

And if you’ve been considering joining Fearless Mastery … what would it be like to let go of your old fears and past experiences stopping you, and open to what could be?

Most of Our Lives Are Spent Running From the Moment

Fri, 17 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

By Leo Babauta

I’ve been closely observing myself and dozens of others for years now, like a Jane Goodall of human behavior … and what I notice is that we spend most of our waking hours running.

We run so much, we could call ourselves ultramarathoners!

Look closely at yourself today, and see if you can notice this.

Things we run from:

Discomfort (running to comforts like social media, phones, TV, games, food)
Uncertainty and fear (procrastinating or avoiding, perfectionism and control)
Boredom, silence, stillness

And we’re doing it all day long. No judgment — this is what it’s like to a human.

This running from discomfort, uncertainty, fear, boredom, silence, and stillness … this is what results in:

Procrastination and avoidance, emails sitting in the inbox for awhile, projects that get stalled, workouts that get pushed to the next day
Habit change efforts that get derailed
Eating foods that aren’t on our plans
Overwork and exhaustion, no setting of boundaries
Avoiding difficult conversations, relationship problems
Addictions, being consumed by social media or news, not being able to get away from the phone or technology, sleep issues
Not being able to take responsibility for our emotions, not processing those emotions, and a host of problems that result from that

I would submit that the main problems we’re facing in our society (and as individuals) stem from this running.

So how do we stop running? Well, that’s an unrealistic goal — but let’s look at how to slow down the running.

How to Slow Down When All You Want to Do is Run

The first thing, of course, is to notice the running in the first place. We don’t tend to notice, nor do we want to notice. But if you can see all the ways in which you run — let’s say procrastination, social media, junk food and avoiding difficult convos — then you can notice when you’re doing it.

If you notice you’re running … pause. Slow down for just a moment. You can still go to your comforts, but slow down and breathe for just a few seconds.

In that pause, can you notice what you’re feeling? What do you want to run from? Can you be present with this for even 5 seconds? Notice how it feels in your body.

Over time, if you do this pause and be present with your emotions practice, you’ll develop a greater capacity to do it. You’ll be able to do it for 10 seconds, 20, a minute, and then more. I also encourage you to view it with friendliness, as if it’s not an enemy or a kind of suffering but a tender part of your heart.

Try it. See what it’s like to not run. That gives you choice. And then a whole new world can open up.