I used to have a lot of bad habits. I still do, but I used to have a lot more. Here’s just a small sampling:

1. I woke up late and went to bed early.
2. I procrastinated on my most important work.
3. I neglected my relationships.
4. I drank too much.
5. I bit my fingernails.
6. I slouched a lot.
7. I picked my nose (no joke).
8. I bought worthless things I didn’t need.
9. I chewed with my mouth open.
10. I dressed like a slob.
11. I ate tons of junk food.

I could go on, but none of that’s incredibly important. What’s important is that I used to have a lot of bad habits, and now I have fewer.

I spent years dissatisfied with my habits and never made much progress changing them. Yes, sometimes I’d make a small step forward, but it usually wasn’t long until I was back to “Old Tyler” again (thanks, procrastination habit).

I’m fortunate to have learned recently that it doesn’t have to be this way.

I always thought I could change things myself — I’m a die-hard do-it-yourselfer — so I never gave a second thought to any other way.

The thing that helped me finally knock out that eleven point list (plus a few other habits I’m too embarrassed to mention here), took a real leap of faith; I let someone help me.

It started as a practical matter. I decided to try vegetarianism and recruited my girlfriend to try it with me so we could eat together. That lasted more than a year before consciously changing diets. We did the same thing to stop biting our nails.

For the very first time, I was developing habits that I created on purpose. It felt great — like I was really in control of my life after years of spinning my wheels.

How could I keep this going?

At the time, I was so fiercely independent that I hardly realized what had contributed to the success. It took a few more heart-crushing failures with other goals before finally getting the picture.

Late in 2010, a friend mentioned he wanted to wake up earlier to get more work done in the morning. I remembered how much I enjoyed waking up early when I actually did it, so I agreed to a six o’clock meeting and accountability report every morning. Almost one year later, we’re still going strong.

It’s pretty amazing what a little accountability can do for your motivation.

Since then, I’ve wised up and started recruiting partners to help me with all of my big goals:

• A small mastermind group that I work on business goals with
• A few local friends to help get my shy ass out of the house once in awhile
• And almost 5,000 companions to keep me on track with some of my biggest life goals.

The difference is incredible.

The secret is that, for some of us, successful habit change is a two-headed beast — not something to be tackled alone. If you’ve struggled with habit change yourself, recruit some help.

But who do you ask? And how do you find the right partners in crime? Unfortunately, not just anyone is a good fit. Picking the right person that will compliment you is just as important as picking someone at all.

Fair warning: Friends and relatives do not always make the best accountability partners.

Through plenty of trial and error, I’ve found a few characteristics that I look for in someone I’m about to partner with to make an important life change. Perhaps they’ll help you find a good fit, too.

• They’re a little ahead of you, but not too far ahead. In a good accountability partnership, one person is usually at least a little bit further beyond the other. Though you’re both helping each other, one person stands out as the more likely mentor. Otherwise, it’s the blind leading the blind. And you don’t want your partner to be too far ahead of you, or the relationship is unbalanced and feels awkward.
• They’re a little bit competitive. You probably don’t want someone who’s looking to stick it to you every chance they get, but you’ll get a lot further a lot faster if your accountability partner isn’t satisfied with self defeat and is willing to actually hold you accountable.
• They have similar goals to you. You don’t have to be working on the exact same thing to work well with a partner — it can be great to work together on separate projects — but there should be an obvious overlap of your big goals. There needs to be something that ties you two together beyond just “wanting to change something.”
• They’re focused. If you agree to meet for 10 minutes each day, but never seem to get anywhere because your meetings are unfocused, first look at yourself. Are you dragging things off course on a regular basis? If not, then it’s probably time to find a more focused partner.
• They’re supportive when you need it.  This goes back to competitiveness. You want your partner to push you and hold you accountable — that’s what they’re there for — but a good one also has your best interest at heart and knows when you need a little lift instead of a scolding.
• They show commitment. The truth is that you can usually tell if a partnership like this is going to work within a week. If your accountability partner can’t even get it together at the very beginning when excitement is running high, that’s a pretty good indication they’re not committed to change. Best to get out. This doesn’t make them a bad person, but it probably makes them a bad partner for now.

If you’ve ever struggled with making an important habit change in your life, then I challenge you to step out of your comfort zone and ask for help. If you’re like me, it could turn everything around.

What do you want to change? Who can help?

Tyler Tervooren writes for a team of highly skilled risk takers helping each other do meaningful things in their lives at Advanced Riskology. Follow him on Google+.

‘Don’t panic.’ ~Douglas Adams

Post written by Leo Babauta.

Why is it that we cannot break the bad habits that stand in our way, crushing our desires to live a healthy life, be fit, simplify, be happier?

How is it that our best intentions are nearly always beaten? We want to be focused and productive, exercise and eat healthy foods, stop smoking and learn to get rid of debt and clutter, but we just can’t.

The answer lies in something extremely simple, but something most people aren’t aware of:

We don’t know how to cope with stress and boredom in a healthy way.

The bad habits we’ve formed are often useful to us, in dealing with stress and boredom. Consider the bad habits that fit this bill:

• Smoking
• Internet procrastination
• Eating junk food
• Drinking
• Being rude/angry/depressed
• Watching TV or playing video games (if you become addicted & sedentary)
• Shopping (getting into debt, building clutter)
• Procrastinating on finances, paperwork, clutter (too stressful)
• Inactivity (avoiding exercise is a stress avoidance technique)
• Biting nails, chewing hair, clenching jaw

This isn’t a complete list, but all of these habits fill a strong need: they are ways to cope with stress and/or boredom. We have formed them as coping mechanisms, and they stick around because we don’t have better ways of coping.

So what if instead, we replaced them with healthier ways of coping? We’d get rid of the problems of these bad habits, and start getting the benefits of better habits.

Better Coping Habits

How can we deal with stress and boredom instead? There’s no one answer, but the habits we form should be ones that lead to healthier results. Some ideas:

• Walk/run/swim/bike
• Do pushups, pullups, squats
• Yoga/meditation
• Play with friends/kids
• Create, write, play music, read when we’re bored
• Learn to enjoy being alone, instead of being bored
• Take a daily walk and enjoy nature
• Deal with finances, clutter, paperwork immediately, in small steps, so that it doesn’t get stressful
• Take control of a situation: make a list, get started in baby steps, so things don’t get stressful
• Learn to be mindful of your breathing, body tension, stressed-out thoughts
• Get some rest
• Learn to savor healthy food that you find delicious
• Slow down
• Take a hot bath
• Learn to live in the present

These are some good examples. Each habit above will help cope with or prevent stress or boredom. If you replace the bad habits with these, your life will be less stressful and healthier. You’ll have less debt, less clutter, less fat, less disease.

Changing the Habits

The old habits of coping didn’t build up overnight, and they won’t go away overnight either. We built them up through years of repetition, and the only way to change them is also years of repetition.

But an important start is to realize why we do them — stress and boredom, largely — and realize that there are other ways to deal with these two problems. We need to be aware when stress and boredom start to kick in, and instead of being afraid of them, realize that they are problems easily solved by other habits. Let’s take the fear out of stress and boredom. Let’s learn that we can beat them simply, and prove that with repeated good habits.

Once you have that realization, follow the usual Zen Habits steps to changing a habit:

1. Pick one habit at a time.
2. Start very small – just a minute or two, if you want it to stick.
3. Use social motivation like Facebook, Twitter, Google+ or email.
4. Be very conscious of your triggers, and do the habit consciously every time the trigger happens.
5. Enjoy the new habit. You’ll stick with it longer if you do.

We have been crushed by the habits we’ve formed out of fear of stress and boredom. We can fight back, by learning to breathe, to smile, to go slowly. We can humble these giants that crush us by turning them into mere gnats to be shooed away with a smile.

‘Everything is practice.’ ~Pele

Post written by Leo Babauta.

When we learn a martial art, or ballet, or gymnastics, or soccer … we consciously practice movements in a deliberate way, repeatedly. By conscious, repeated practice, we become good at those movements.

Our entire lives are like this, but we’re often less conscious of the practice.

Each day, we repeat movements, thought patterns, ways of interacting with others … and in this repeated practice, we are becoming (or have already become) good at these things. If you constantly check Facebook or Twitter, that is practice, and you are forming that habit, though it’s usually not with too much awareness.

When you smoke, or eat junk food, or speak rudely to others, or put yourself down internally, this is something you are practicing to be good at. You may already be good at these things.

What if, instead, we practiced consciously, deliberately, and became good at the things we really want to be good at?

What if you first, above all skills, learned to be more aware of what you are practicing? What if constant conscious action is the skill you became good at?

If you could learn to take conscious action, you could learn to practice other things you want to be good at, rather than the ones you don’t.

What Are You Practicing?

Ask yourself these things throughout the day, to practice conscious action:

• Do I want to practice rushing through my morning, or can I wake a little earlier and simplify my morning routine so that I practice a slow, enjoyable morning ritual?
• Do I want to practice checking my inboxes when I first get to my computer, or can I do something better?
• Do I want to practice leaving dirty dishes out, or can I practice washing my bowl when I’m done with it?
• Do I want to practice leaving clothes strewn about, or papers lying on the counter, or can I take a few seconds to put them where they belong?
• Do I want to speak angrily to my kids or spouse, or can I speak to them with kindness and compassion?
• Do I want to practice complaining and self-pity, or can I practice gratitude?
• Do I want to practice rushing and being busy, or can I practice simplifying and going slowly?
• Do I want to practice eating fried foods, sugary foods, salty junk food snacks, fast foods … or can I practice eating whole foods, vegetables and fruits, nuts and beans and seeds?
• Do I want to practice surfing time-wasting sites, or can I practice clearing away distractions and creating?
• Do I want to practice watching mindless entertainment, or can I practice moving my body and exerting myself in activity?
• Do I want to practice smoking, or can I learn a healthier way to deal with stress?
• Do I want to practice shopping, or can I practice giving?

These are only examples … your life will show you what you’ve been practicing, and you can decide what you might rather practice instead. Or you might be completely happy with what you’ve been practicing.

Some ideas for creative practice from Ali Edwards.

How to Practice

The first step is always awareness. When you are conscious of what you are doing, you can decide whether this is an action or thought pattern you want to practice, or if there’s an alternative you’d rather be good at.

As you go through your day, practice this awareness. It’s the first skill, and it’s the most important one. Be aware, without feeling guilty or angry at yourself, of what you’re doing and thinking. You will forget to to this, but remind yourself. You might wear a rubber band around your wrist, or carry a talisman, or make tally marks on a slip of paper each time you remember.

As you get good at conscious action, start to practice those actions and thought patterns you want to be good at. Start to notice the ones you’d really rather not be good at, and see if you can deliberately practice other actions and thought patterns.

As you consciously, deliberately repeat these things, you’ll get better at them. It takes a lot of repetition to get good at a skill, but you’ve got time.

Important Conclusions

You won’t be able to change all your habits at once, and I’m not implying that you should try. The habit you’re really changing is consciousness, and practice. Other habits will be difficult to change, especially if you’re trying to change all of them, but it’s OK if you mess up. Give yourself permission to make mistakes without guilt, and instead just deliberately practice again, and again.

If something is too hard, and you can’t get it right no matter how many times you practice, you can try it in smaller steps. If you can’t quit smoking, try not smoking once, and instead relieving stress through walking or doing some pushups or meditation or self-massage. If you can’t quit junk food, just replace one snack with a fruit, or add a tasty veggie to your dinner.

I’d like to emphasize that this isn’t about perfection. There is no perfect way of life, and you don’t need to strive to be perfect every moment of the day. I believe you’re already perfect. This is just about conscious action, which is a useful skill to have.

Remember that we become good at what we repeatedly do, and what we do repeatedly can be done consciously. It’s when we’re conscious that we are truly alive.

‘If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.’ ~Dalai Lama

—

The Power of Less, on Sale

As part of a New Year’s promotion by my publisher, Hyperion, my book The Power of Less is on sale for just $3.99 until Jan. 31, 2012.

This is actually a steal, and I highly recommend it.

Buy the book on sale on these sites:

• Amazon
• Barnes & Noble
• Google Books
• Apple iTunes

A new year, a new slate of resolutions.

Perhaps the biggest resolution at New Year’s is to get fit — start exercising, start eating right, and all that jazz.

But resolutions never last. As you might already know, I’m not a fan of resolutions.

Instead of creating a list of resolutions this year, create a new habit.

Habits last, and they lead to long-term fitness (and more). They require more patience, but they are worth the wait.

As some of you know, fitness habits are what started me along the path to changing my life. I quit smoking, started running. Then I started eating healthier, became vegetarian (now vegan), quit the junk food addiction, started doing other types of workouts (bodyweight, weights, Crossfit, anything that was fun).

And six years later, I’m nearly 39 years old and in the best shape of my life. I have less bodyfat than any time since high school, more muscle than ever in my life, and I can run and hike and play longer than anytime in the history of Leo. That’s not to brag, but to show you what can be done with some simple fitness habits.

Reshaping Through Habits

The appealing thing about many fitness programs is that they promise quick results. You see testimonials from people who have gone through the program and lost 30 lbs. and gain a washboard stomach in just 4 weeks!

That’s all complete crap.

First, most people won’t achieve those results. Second, and more importantly, if you do get quick results, you’ll reverse those results very quickly … because you haven’t created new habits. You’ve just done something intense and unsustainable for a short period of time. That’s nearly worthless.

You should be focused on long-term results, and more importantly on a healthy lifestyle. A healthy lifestyle starts with changing your habits and ends with long-term results.

Changing habits takes time. I recommend one habit at a time, and give yourself about a month per habit. That takes patience, but you shouldn’t try to see amazing results in just 30 days. You should enjoy your new lifestyle, which will be an amazing result in itself that you can achieve immediately. In a matter of months and years, your body and health will change too.

Let’s say you change one habit at a time, one per month or so. You’ll have 12 new habits every year. Even if you only formed 6 habits that stuck and that you loved, you’d be amazed at what kind of changes those 6 habits would create in your life and fitness. If you did 6 habits a year for three years, you’d be transformed.

If you don’t have the patience to change one habit at a time, or focus on enjoying your new habits rather than getting quick results, you should stop reading now.

Which Habits to Choose

So let’s say you’re just starting out … what habit should you start with?

My favorite habit is daily exercise, but if you’re looking to lose weight probably the most important habits relate to eating.

In truth, which habit you choose first matters very little in the long run. You will be changing many little habits over the course of the next few years, and the order of those habits is unimportant. What matters is that you start.

Here are some habits that I’d start with, if you haven’t created them yet:

• Exercise for just 5 minutes a day, adding 5 minutes per week. Make it a fun exercise.
• Drink water instead of sweet drinks.
• Replace fried foods with vegetables.
• Eat fruit and nuts for snacks.
• Eat lean protein, including plant proteins, instead of red meat.
• Add strength exercises to your routine — pushups, pullups, squats, lunges.
• If you’ve been doing all of the above for awhile, add some weights — compound lifts like squats, deadlifts, bench presses, dips, chinups, overhead presses and rows.

I’ve found that losing weight is simple: eat lots of veggies and plant or lean protein, reduce calories, do some kind of cardio, lift some weights to preserve muscle.

Gaining muscle is also fairly simple: eat lots of veggies and plant or lean protein, increase calories, do some kind of cardio to preserve heart health, lift heavy weights to grow muscle.

The weights should be compound lifts and heavy, the cardio should be enjoyable. Getting “toned”, btw, is just gaining muscle and losing the fat that covers the muscle, whether you’re a man or woman.

Forming the Habit

These are my top principles for forming habits. If you’ve read my writings on habits before, this won’t be new to you, but often it’s good to review these principles for things you’ve missed:

1. Make it social. This is an incredibly powerful too. I highly, highly recommend Fitocracy to everyone, as it’s a way to make exercise fun and social (invite code: ZENHABITS). It turns fitness into a game, and you log your exercises, get points, encourage others, complete fitness quests, get props for workouts you’ve done. Other great ways to make your habit change social: report on your daily progress to friends and family through Facebook, Twitter, Google+ or email, find a workout partner, get a coach, join a running group, join online fitness forums, join a class.
2. Do one habit at a time only. People often skip this one because they think they are different than everyone else, but I’ve found this to be extremely effective. You increase your odds of success with just one habit at a time, for many reasons: habits are hard to form because they require lots of focus and energy, having many habits means you’re spreading yourself too thin, and if you can’t commit to one habit at a time, you’re not fully committed.
3. Make it your top priority. People often put off fitness and diet stuff because they’re too busy, too tired, to stressed out by big projects or the holidays, etc. But in my experience, those are great reasons you *should* be exercising. So make your new diet or exercise habit one of your absolute top priorities for the day. If you don’t have time, you need to make time.
4. Enjoy the habit. This is extremely important, and most people ignore it. If the habit is fun, you will stick with it longer. And even better, if you are enjoying it, you immediately win. You don’t need to wait for a bunch of pounds lost or other results — you get instant results because you’re enjoying the change. I find activities I enjoy, I join challenges or races to make exercise fun, I enjoy a conversation with a friend during a run, I eat healthy foods that are delicious (berries — yum!) and focus on savoring those foods. Focus on the enjoyment, and don’t make the habit change a big sacrifice.

Final Recommendations

Many people set fitness goals for the year. I’ve done it myself, but lately I’ve found that I can get fit without them. For one thing, when you set goals, they are often arbitrary, and so you are spending all your effort working towards a basically meaningless number. And then if you don’t achieve it, you feel like you failed, even if the number was arbitrary to start with.

You can create habits without goals — I define goals as a predefined outcome that you’re striving for, not activities that you just want to do. So is creating a habit a goal? It can be, or you can approach it with the attitude of “it doesn’t matter what the outcome of this habit change is, but I want to enjoy the change as I do it”.

So enjoy the habit change, in the moment, and don’t worry what the outcome of the activity is. The outcome matters very little, if you enjoy the journey.

The journey to fitness can have an infinite number of paths, and setting your path in advance by setting goals is limiting. Allow yourself to change course on a whim, without guilt of not achieving a goal, and you’ll find new paths you’d never have anticipated when you set out.

But the most important step of the journey is the first one. After that, the most important step is the one you’re presently taking. So take that step, and enjoy it.

Once upon a time, there was a farmer. This farmer lived in a different age than his forefathers, who were also farmers.

Instead of specializing in tomatoes or cotton as his ancestors had done, our farmer was gifted with the ability to decide every day what to plant and nurture. By the time the next day rolled around, the previous day’s crops were ready for harvest. (In these fields, crops grew very fast.)

While making decisions about his daily planting priorities, the farmer also thought about the meaning of life. Was the purpose of his existence all about ears of corn and bushels of strawberries? No, of course not. The farmer knew he wanted something more than the tasks he worked on while the sun was coming up.

The farmer also knew that in some areas of his life, he wanted to slow down and breathe easy. He did that already, reading Zen Habits every day on his mobile device while plowing the fields. He did not check email until the sun reached high noon, and he maintained few possessions that did not bring joy to his life or regular maintenance for his tractor.

The farmer was in good health, had a loving family, and kept up a routine of picking through carrots and alfalfa each week.

But the farmer knew that this routine was not enough. Deep inside his soul, the farmer wanted a challenge.

The farmer decided he should set out to build something that would improve the state of the world. But what would it be?

At first he was perplexed. “I’m just a farmer,” he thought. But then, as he was bringing in a bumper crop of sweet potatoes one afternoon, he began to understand that there was much more he could offer the world than the vegetables he harvested during his day job.

Once he started to think in this new way, the ideas kept coming. Should he begin a community tractor pull, bringing together the neighbors for a friendly competition? Write a highly-trafficked blog on cotton pesticides (“7 Simple Ways to Keep Production High”)? Distribute his excess starter crops to an enterprising young farmer in a land far away?

He wasn’t exactly sure which project he would choose, and he knew he might change his mind later. But in determining to begin something, the farmer felt a surge of confidence rush over him. The possibilities were as plentiful as the colors in the sunset he viewed each evening from the rocking chair on the porch.

What would the farmer build? How would he ultimately change the world?

As the moon rose over his latest crop and the farmer sat in the chair, he thought about the possibilities and said to himself, “I’m ready.” And then the farmer got off his porch and went to work.

Chris Guillebeau is the author of The Art of Non-Conformity blog and bestselling book. You can download his new manifesto on creating a legacy project, The Tower, for free.

I’ve learned a lot about changing habits over the years, and have taught thousands of people how to do it.

The hardest habits to change, by far, are the ones people can’t seem to control. They want to change, but can’t seem to find the “willpower” (a term I don’t believe in).

For me, some of the things that seemed out of my control: smoking, eating junk food, overeating during social occasions, procrastination, anger, patience, negative thoughts.

I learned one little secret that allowed me to change it all:

When you are aware, you can change it.

OK, don’t roll your eyes and stop reading yet. That secret might seem obvious to some, or too simplistic. So let’s go a bit deeper.

When we have urges to eat something we know is bad for us, we often give in. But is it that simple? The truth is that our mind is actually rationalizing why we should just eat that cake, why it’s too hard to not eat it, why it isn’t that bad to eat it. It asks why we’re putting ourselves through pain, why can’t we let ourselves just live, and don’t we deserve that treat?

All of this happens without our noticing, usually. It’s quiet, in the background of our consciousness, but it’s there. And it’s incredibly powerful. It’s even more powerful when we’re not aware it’s happening.

It beats us all the time — not just with eating, but with anything we try to do and end up quitting, caving in, doing it despite our best efforts.

How can we defeat this powerful force — our own mind?

Awareness is the key. It’s the start.

1. Start by becoming aware. Become an observer. Start listening to your self talk, observe what your mind does. Pay attention. It’s happening all the time. Meditation helps with this. I also learned through running — by not taking along an iPod, I run in silence, and have nothing to do but watch nature and listen to my mind.

2. Don’t act. Your mind will urge you to eat that cake (“Just a bite!”) or smoke that cigarette or stop running or procrastinate. Listen to what your mind is saying, but don’t act on those instructions. Just sit still (mentally) and watch and listen.

3. Let it pass. The urge to smoke, eat, procrastinate, or quit running … it will pass. It’s temporary. Usually it only lasts a minute or two. Breathe, and let it pass.

4. Beat the rationalizations. You can actively argue with your mind. When it says, “One little bite won’t hurt!”, you should point to your gut and say, “Yeah, that’s what you said all those other times, and now I’m fat!” When it says, “Why are you putting yourself through this pain?”, you should say, “It’s painful to be unhealthy, and it’s only painful to avoid the cake if you look at it as a sacrifice — instead, it can be a joy to embrace healthy and delicious foods, and fitness!”

There are lots of times when “willpower” fails us. These are the times we need to become aware of our minds.

When we are aware, we can change it. This is a small secret, but it’s life changing. It changed my life, because I can now change anything. I watch, and I wait, and I beat it. You can too.

After last week’s article on How I Changed My Life, In Four Lines, I had many people ask the same question:

“I want to change a few different things in my life — health, debt, productivity, etc. Do I really need to do them separately, focusing on one thing only and nothing else until that change is done? Even if they’re in different areas?”

Yes, I would recommend you focus on one change at a time. Here’s why.

It’s very hard to make changes that stick, especially if you’re trying to focus on more than one. In my experiments, I’ve found very consistently that changing multiple things at once doesn’t work very well. Your focus gets spread thin, and in the long run you end up failing to stick to any of the changes. If you’ve tried and failed at multiple changes at once before, you’ll know what I mean.

So do one change at a time, for at least a month. Six weeks is better. Then you can focus on one more change, and so on. That’ll be about six to eight changes a year — changes that will stick. They will last much, much longer than ones that you apply thinner focus to.

What you’ll find is that this is enough. These little changes will really add up over time, and you’ll end up with major changes in your life after a year or two.

This method is effective. I’ve used it for six years to great success, and many of my readers have too. Most people use the less effective method of multi-changing, and fail to stick with things, and blame it on their “lack of discipline”. No, it’s just a less effective method than single-changing.

Patience is tough. We are geared to wanting lots of changes right now, and waiting seems too hard. We want instant gratification, because television and marketing has taught us that this is best. It isn’t. Waiting and doing things slowly is much more satisfying, I promise.

And most of us will read advice like this and say, “No, this doesn’t apply to me. I can do better than most people.” And maybe that’s true. My advice applies to people who have had trouble changing their lives. Those who are good at it might not need to follow the single-changing method. But most of us should do one change at a time.

Try it, and see what happens. I dare you.

Questions & Answers

I received a couple common questions:

Q: If I’m trying to pay off my debt, do I focus on nothing but that until all the debt is paid off?

A: Focus on one of the changes you need to pay off your debt … like spending less, or making regular savings deposits or debt payments … for 4-6 weeks. Then you can move on to another change. Don’t focus for 4-6 weeks on the goal (the outcome), but the change in habits you need to reach the goal.

Q: How do I know when to start a different habit? How do I know if the first one is already fixed and it is time to move to the next? Are there signs or do I follow the 21 day rule? Is that really enough?

A: The 21 day rule isn’t based on anything really. You know you can move on when you don’t have to consciously do the change — you automatically do it. If you’re very consistent, about 4 weeks should be good enough. If you have a slip-up or two, it might take up to 6 weeks. These are rough numbers, and depend on how difficult the habit is and also whether anything comes up in the future to derail the habit.

A good rule of thumb is to go by feel … do you still need to put a lot of focus on the habit change, or has it become routine and semi-automatic? It’ll take a couple more months of repetition before it becomes really automatic, probably, but if you don’t really need to remind yourself, but just go to do the habit right after your trigger, it’s starting to become a part of your routine. At this point, you can start a new habit, as long as you’re keeping an eye on maintaining the first one.

You’d be surprised to know how many emails I get where people are stuck in their lives.

They’re broke, or unmotivated, or in a job they hate, or they can’t find their passion, or they can’t get motivated to get healthy.

And they don’t know where to start.

It hurts to read these emails. It brings back to life the pain I lived through not too many years ago, when I too was stuck.

I know the feeling of despair when you are unhappy with your life and don’t know how to change. When you’ve tried lots of changes, but couldn’t find the discipline to make them stick. When you feel crappy about yourself because you know you should get off your butt and start improving your life, but you’d rather put it off for another day.

Problems go away when you ignore them, right?

I also know that there is really only one way out of this mire of despair.

It’s to take an action, no matter how tiny.

You don’t need to fix everything in your life right now. You don’t even need to fix one thing.

You just need to do one little, miniscule, almost nothing thing.

Make a list. Go outside and take a walk. Get rid of some of your junk food. Clear off your kitchen table. Cancel something tomorrow so you can make time to create something, no matter how small.

Don’t do all of these. Do one. Or half of one, or one thousandth. It doesn’t matter how small — the smaller, the better.

Take that first step. Celebrate that first step. Love the step, not the destination. That step, even the motion of taking the first foot off the ground and moving it forward — that’s everything.

That’s the truth, and you’ll not read it in many self-help books: put every microparticle of your existence into that half step, and be nothing but that half step, and love it with all you have … and your life has changed.

With this half step, everything is different. You haven’t achieved any goals … but you’ve moved. You haven’t created something amazing … and yet, more than ever before, you have.

You’ve created beauty and joy and movement where none existed before, where previously only constriction and paralysis and confusion lived. You have changed the world.

The First Habit

Choose one little habit to add joy to your life. Just one, and tiny is miraculous.

It can be writing or painting or making music for 2 minutes a day. It can be a ridiculously easy walk or jog or enjoying a bowl of fruit. It can be 2 minutes of meditation or reflecting in a journal.

Enjoy the hell out of it.

Create this one habit, and you have a success. This is a foundation, a first step, to build on.

Then you can do a second, and a third, but you can’t do those without a first.

Don’t change your entire life. Just change this one little thing.

You’d be amazed how much that matters. I was.

I do not have a daily routine. I no longer need one.

I do, however, have habits on which I focus every day.

Don’t get me wrong, I used to have a daily routine — before I quit my six-figure job to pursue my passions and live a more meaningful life. And I hated that routine. Every day felt like Groundhog Day: awake to a blaring alarm, shower, shave, put on a suit and tie, spend an hour or more in mind-numbing traffic, succumb to the daily trappings of emails and phone calls and instant messages and meetings, drive home through even more mind-numbing traffic, eat something from a box in the freezer, search for escape within the glowing box in the living room, brush my teeth, set the alarm clock, sleep for five or six hours, start all over again in the morning.

That was life most days. The same thing over and over and over. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

And then last year I decided it wasn’t for me anymore. I realized working 60 to 80 hours a week to make the money to buy more superfluous stuff didn’t fill the void I felt inside. It only brought more debt and anxiety and fear and loneliness and guilt and stress and paranoia and depression.

So I canceled my routine. Or, rather, I traded in my routine for better habits.

It didn’t happen overnight, but over a few years I pared down my possessions, got into the best shape of my life, paid off my debt, jettisoned my TV, eliminated Internet at home, left corporate America, started pursuing my passions, stopped buying junk, and started living a more meaningful life — a life focused on growth and contribution.

During that time of personal growth I developed new habits I love, habits I look forward to each day, habits that make me happy: exercise, writing, reading, establishing new connections with people, and building upon existing relationships.

I am also developing the habit of contribution. I believe giving is living — we don’t feel truly alive unless we contribute to other people in meaningful ways. Donating time to Habitat for Humanity, local soup kitchens, and various other community organizations has been a starting point on my journey towards developing this habit. I also enjoy contributing to the readers at our website and inspiring them to change their lives, much like Leo and Zen Habits inspired me to change mine.

Many readers ask me what my typical day looks like now that I’m no longer forced into an unnecessary routine. My answer is always the same: every day is a blank page, although there are habits I act upon daily.

Presenting last Thursday as an example, this is how I enjoyed the day:

I woke at 4:50am without an alarm, excited and refreshed. These days my habit is to wake when my body tells me it’s rested. But there is no routine.

I ate a banana, drank a cup of coffee, then wrote from 5am to 11am. As I primarily write literary fiction, I prefer writing in the morning when it’s quiet and I’m closest to the dream world. My writing room contains only a desk, a chair, a laptop, and my notes — the only things I need. Nothing else. There’s no phone, no Internet, no clock — no distractions. Just me and my habit, which I enjoy immensely. Each day I write until I don’t feel like writing anymore. But there is no routine.

After a writing-fueled morning (interrupted only by push-ups every hour or so), I walked to the neighborhood park and alternated between pull-ups and push-ups under the midday sun. Exercise is important for me, and I enjoy it daily. But there is no routine.

I showered, dressed (jeans and a T-shirt), and walked to a local burrito joint to eat a modest, vegetarian lunch. I eat when my body tells me I’m hungry, irrespective of the time (I don’t own a watch). Some days I eat lunch at noon; other days I might eat at 10am or 3pm. But there is no routine.

After my meal, I walked to my favorite coffee shop, ordered an herbal tea, used their Internet connection to check my email and publish some writing online, then visited with some of the regulars (as well as some strangers). There were 37 emails in my inbox, which was okay as I only check email two or three times per week. Sometimes more, sometimes less. But there is no routine.

After two or three hours on the Internet, I walked to a park, sat on a bench, and read a novel while the sun set fire to the sky. Some days this habit invites me to devour chapter after chapter, hour after hour; other days I read for only half an hour. But there is no routine.

After a few chapters, I hit the gym with my best friend (and online writing pal), Ryan Nicodemus, and enjoyed some cardio and weight training. We habitually visit the gym four or five days per week. We drop by at different times each day. But there is no routine.

Throughout the day I made sure I was hydrated. Besides coffee and herbal tea, I drank only water. No alcohol. No sugary drinks. No soda (or ‘pop,’ for those of us in the Midwest). I attempt to drink my body weight in ounces of water each day, which isn’t always easy — so sometimes I drink only half that. But that’s okay: there is no routine.

I own a car, but I didn’t drive it on Thursday. I didn’t need to. It was a nice day, so I walked instead (even though Dayton, Ohio, isn’t exactly the most walkable city in the world). Some days I need to drive to where I want to go; other days I can walk. But there is no routine.

Later that evening I enjoyed dinner and a conversation with a friend, and afterwards we walked to a local concert. Other days I might watch a movie at the indie theater or visit a friend’s house or spend time in an art gallery or volunteer a few hours of my time, all habits I enjoy. But there is no routine.

After the concert, I walked a few miles by myself, gathering my thoughts. It had been a beautiful day, followed by a beautiful night — a denim sky illuminated by a waning crescent moon, a million diamonds afire, and the prospect of a new day at midnight.

The good news is my life is no different than yours, minus the routine. Sure, the details are different, the circumstances are different, but we all have the same 24 hours in a day. We all have one life to live, and that life is passing by one day at a time. The only real difference lies within the decisions we make and the actions we take.

Joshua Millburn writes essays with Ryan Nicodemus about minimalism and living a meaningful life with less stuff at The Minimalists. Follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his website.

‘Powerful indeed is the empire of habit.’ ~Publilius Syrus

Post written by Leo Babauta.

It’s amazing how big a difference a little thing can make. Starting your day mindfully with some tea, for example, can change your entire day. Clearing your desk will make your work day amazing. A smile from a loved one can mean the world.

And when these little things are repeated daily, and formed into habits, their benefits increase not just by multiples but by exponents.

The little habits can be life-changing.

Everyone’s world-changing little habits will be different, but I’ll share a few of mine, and then some tips for forming them.

My Little Habits

I have lots of little habits, but these are a handful of my favorites:

1. Get-in-the-door ritual. Whenever I get home, the first thing I do is put my stuff away. I have a designated spot for my keys, cash/cards (I don’t use a wallet), phone, and coins. Everything else either gets tossed or put wherever it belongs. If we brought something home like groceries or library books, those get put away, right away. This is an important little ritual because even people who have simplified their homes notice that possessions and junk can build up over time — and that starts with what you bring in. It’s no use simplifying and organizing if it just gets cluttered and disorganized every time you come home.
2. Put clothes away. It’s so simple, but when I take clothes off, they either go in the hamper or I fold them & put them in my drawer or hang them in the closet. Others drape them over chairs or throw them on the floor or bed, and sorting through them later becomes a major chore. By doing it right away, things stay organized and I don’t have to worry about cleaning up later.
3. Wash my bowl. When I finish eating, I wash my dishes by hand, mindfully. No mess to clean up later. Read more.
4. Prepare meals in advance. This is important when I’m trying to stick to an eating plan. Cooking your own meals is the healthiest (and most frugal) choice, but if you have to cook three to six times a day, it’ll get too cumbersome and you’re likely to give up. So I prepare my food in bulk (for 3-6 days in advance), and eat the same meals all week. It’s no harder than cooking smaller meals. I only make food that I adore, so I don’t get bored. It’s super easy to stay on a meal plan this way.
5. Just step out the door. My motto for exercise. Most people have a hard time with motivation to do workouts, but not me. First of all, I only do workouts I love, so I actually look forward to them. But second, I never think about how I don’t feel like doing a workout — because I tell myself that all I have to do is get on my shoes and get out the door. The rest flows naturally.
6. Clear distractions. When I’m ready to do a task, I clear all distractions. Small action, huge difference.
7. Take a walk & reflect. Taking a short walk is such a simple thing to do — you can do it during your lunch break, or take a break when you’ve been working for a couple hours straight. It only needs to be 10-20 minutes. But oh boy, what a world of difference. Not only does the walk relieve stress and clear your head, it gives you an opportunity to reflect on what you’ve been doing, and reflection is one of the most important tools for changing your life.
8. Breathe. When I get stressed, I simply breathe.

How to Form Them

I’ve written about habits numerous times before, but here’s an easy guide to forming a little habit:

• Do one habit at a time.
• Make it easy to do.
• Do it consciously, very consciously at first.
• Don’t allow any exceptions.
• Post your progress publicly.
• Keep doing it, every single day.
• Enjoy the habit.

Forming a habit can be easy, if you enjoy it, take it slowly, and do it mindfully.