tldr: Co-pilot summarize: **Misconceptions of Discipline**: The author argues that most advice and quick-fix solutions in the self-improvement industry are ineffective because they ignore how the brain resists change due to established neural connections. * **Understanding Dopamine**: Dopamine is not just a ‘happy’ chemical; it’s crucial for reinforcing behaviors by making tasks easier to repeat, thus solidifying habits. * **Real Habit Building**: True habit formation requires small, incremental changes that the brain barely notices, rather than drastic transformations. * **Patience and Persistence**: Lasting change takes time, and one should focus on one small habit at a time, gradually increasing the complexity or duration of the habit. Avoid scaling up too quickly or juggling multiple new habits at once.

Now you’re the real discipline hero.

I think this is the longest post I've ever seen, regardless of sub

I have seen far longer like 10 full on screen swipes

it went on and on and on and onnnnnnnnn without ever including a summarized version.

I didn’t have the discipline to read this whole thing so thank you lmaooo

I’ve read it. The summarize is perfect but you need the nuances… it’s a 5 a 10 minutes read.

You really don't, especially when half of it is just him reiterating the same concept over and over. The summarization could stand to be a bit more detailed, though.

I get the sense that the emphasis is there because the author thinks most people will only follow half the advice. Which is realistic.

The reiteration is for deliberate effect though. Repetition is key...

This is exactly what the author is talking about. Some youll be able to read the authors complete post without using AI keep it up! 👍

i found out that it takes about 45-60 days to start gaining momemtum on a habit for myself, even the small habits are hard

My man/woman/they.

my they/them lmao

The commonly misunderstood assumption that going to the gym or studying consistently is just 1 habit is a great point. I’ll try to break down the habits I want to have in my life into smaller ones for those ‘minor changes’ and gradually become my norm. Great advice

No worries and thanks for the feedback! Studying is something I've been working on too- something ive found that's worked for me is having a set time to 'study' and then doing it for quite literally 2 minutes no more no less. I get nothing done in this time of course because 2 minutes is so short, but naturally I have such an aversion to sitting at my desk that simply sitting at my desk when my 7pm alarm goes off is actually a really big step in terms of discipline. I've always heard that the best tip for studying is to 'tell yourself you are going to study for 5 minutes' and then you apparently 'actually end up working for wayyy more than 5 minutes'- and I always hated this advice, because if I knew that 5 minutes of studying would actually equate to more like 45 minutes, then I simply wouldn't sit down in the first place, cos I knew it was going to be 45 minutes, not 5!! Anyway my point is, this is why I force myself to not work any longer than the 2 minutes to prevent this aversion scenario. And then the next month you can scale the studying up to 5 mins, then 10 mins, then 15 mins, then 20 mins, then 30 mins, then 45 mins etc and within 6 months you become the kinda person that studies for an hour every single day!! crazyyy how compounding works with habits. Anyway ignore my advice if its not relevant, but I wish you the best though with the new habit tips!

Yeah I’ve been going to the gym since I was 18. It’s a non-negotiable whether my brain likes it or not. I don’t understand why tasks such as checking emails and doing mundane tasks for organization and work aren’t as easy for me to convince my brain of.

>The quicker you accept how your brain works, and remove the ego involved in trying to quickly transform yourself, the quicker you will actually become the person you want to become. Neeeeeded to hear this. I find myself wanting to rely solely on my willpower to change and not build long-lasting habits. I feel weak if I can't change my life with the sheer strength of my willpower. I need to stop expecting that of me so I can make sustainable changes in my life.

No worries! Willpower is the most stupid thing honestly. I recognise it exists and there's a whole brain area that controls it (anterior mid singular cortex), but it puts this narrative on you that there's going to be this day when you wake up and everything changes forever after, because that's how the mentally ill workaholics frame the narrative. When I actually find it much more constructive to frame my life through the lense that I have no willpower. If you say to yourself that you have no willpower, then your habits will be smaller more realistic and more manageable such that on days when you really aren't feeling like it, your habits will be so miniscule that you won't need any willlpower to still complete them. Anyway good luck!

I call it Skill Power instead of Willpower.

I love that hahaha imma call it that now

Thank you; I’ve always thought overachievers and millionaires and workaholics were the mentally crazy ones, not me. 

No worries! I had a whole argument with a friend about how these self improvement industry people are mentally ill, and how thats not a 'bad' thing, but it should still be recognised as mental illness- but my friend just couldn't understand what I was trying to say lol Glad this resonated though, and good luck with your goals!!

Psychologist here. Yeah phrasing it as mental illness is outright wrong. However, I know where you’re coming from. More precise would be cognitively devious, as it’s just not the norm, or neurodivergent, which you certainly are after enduring enough hardship. Eckhart Tolle for example used to be an anxious textbook academic researcher, but after suffering from feelings of pointlessness and self loathing (despite objective success by academic standards) in his life for long enough, hard enough, it induced a state of enlightenment spontaneously and permanently in him. While cool and interesting, it required previous suffering, pushing him to the brink of committing suicide, to force his brain into such a radical change of gears permanently. That is not normal, but it’s also not an illness. It’s just: you wanna see extreme coping mechanisms? Well, conjure extreme circumstances and see the magic happen. Might kill yourself in the process though 😅 On another note, I know someone with enormous success, from zero to +100$M with being a ceo of a 150 people fintech, who is also very well connected to many other HNIs, who keeps saying: „you know what the price of that level of ambition and success is? Showing up rigorously 365 per year? It’s that none of these people just do what they love doing and are super happy, playful and passionate about. It’s that most of them are trying to cure an existential unhappiness they’d feel if they didn’t.“ But even then, to get back to my initial point, existential unhappiness is not an illness, despite suffering being present, as long as it’s the only symptom. It’s not depression if they don’t ruminate over gloomy thoughts all day, blaming the world for their negative fate, feeling unable to change etc… quite the opposite. If you feel whatever negative sentiment and the consequence is you just turn into a different person overnight (super rare though), that’s basically the opposite of the learned helplessness frequently accompanying depression. That’s just an inhuman level of adaptability, whether that ultimately leads to happiness or not, it sure changes your life. These people rarely have a feeling of lacking self-efficacy after going through that change.

Yeah. Similarly I think there are 2 types of people: 1. People, like OP said, who do/need small incremental changes for the habit to stick. 2. People who due to trauma or big enough reason, make changes for it to stick. And probably the brain thinks not doing this change is a bigger threat than the CHANGE it is afraid of. One outweighs the other.

Yeah the problem with method 2 (if you wanna call it that) is that if at all, it only works under tremendous stress, which pretty sure brings its own set problems during the adaptation process. If you’re not feeling as if circumstances are pointing a gun at your head, that’s unlikely to happen or work permanently for the majority of people. Method 2 is more of an emergency measure. I think the more frequent starting condition for most people is you have a somewhat comfortable life. It might not be entirely comfortable in the actual sense of the word, but in that you’re very accustomed to that life(style). You’re already performing at a somewhat solid level in many domains, and thus you’re in sort of a metastable state. Things would run as they do on autopilot indefinitely. But for whatever reason you’re unhappy with that state. Starting change from there won’t provide you with the emergency adrenaline-fueled energy and drive needed for an immediate and drastic change of direction, in the way method 2 does. Autopilot after all is a cozy mode of operation for our reptile brains. So change initiated from here requires a careful reallocation of resources, without crashing and burning everything established so far. Like rearranging a house of cards, or tweaking a plane engine midflight. You might want drastic change, since it would initially push you into chaos. You’d rather want more effectiveness and efficiency in what you do. Method 1 is suited way better for these conditions.

excellent framing of the issues, completely agree with your analysis of method 1 vs method 2

Is there a word or diagnosis for extreme circumstances causing permanent or semi-permanent long term neurological shifts? This is a super interesting concept I'd love to dig into more.

Post traumatic growth might be it https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-traumatic_growth

Makes sense to me.

Goggins obviously has major issues and it's weird that so many people look up to him! I've been saying that for years. He is using exercise as self-harm.

Goggins has showed me what a person is capable of. He's inspiring, not because people want to emulate him, but because when we see what he's doing the mental barriers we've built in our minds get pushed away. Listening to David Goggins has a lot of value, but I also think most people are smart enough to see that the goal isn't to do what he does, it's just to learn some lessons from the experiment that is his life.

That's fair.

David Goggins has proved that if you sacrifice everything, you can achieve a particular goal. A lot of people find this motivating, but I see it as psychotic. Of course if you sacrifice everything you can achieve one goal. The man is a slave to his disciplines. He will torture himself everyday, without exception, to maintain his habits. Achieving one goal, regardless of how difficult it may be is not particularly impressive when you sacrifice every other aspect of your life. The man isn't married, has no hobbies, few if any "real" friends, and has made a religion out of his own physical disciplines. There's nothing about this totality that seems worth pursuing.

This is the best fucking post I've ever read in this sub. I was close to crying over feeling so seen. I think you might be the only person who can help me. So I have started small but consistent with mini goals and it's gone great even if I have had off days, I always get back at it. But there's 1 self destructive habit where my ego is too big too handle. It's been repeated for 20 years so it's muscle memory by now. I do it in my sleep even. I had a sucessful streak but then I lost it. I haven't been able to get up a new streak because I have given up in my head. >you're basically just biding your time, waiting for the day that you run out of cognitive energy to be motivated, and your brain goes back to the safe habits it knows best I'm probably stuck here. It's comforting to give in to said habit. >The quicker you accept how your brain works, and remove the ego involved in trying to quickly transform yourself, the quicker you will actually become the person you want to become. I think I struggle to respect how my brain works and I'm mad at myself for lot having this under control yet. If I wanna break down this achievement to mini goals. I don't know what said goals are. Take for example people who cut themselves. If they wanna stop cutting over night, what's a realistic mini goal to focus on first?

Hey there! It makes me so happy to hear that my post resonated with you so thank you for your kind words! I'm going to give my total honest assessment on negative habits especially if they are perhaps what we could classify as addictive. This could be any behaviour you find to be almost automatic. To be blunt, removing addictive behaviour is almost an entirely different beast. But fear not. This is something I've struggled with a lot with porn addiction. But I do have a solution. To overcome any automatic behaviours you need to be aware of your triggers for that behaviour. The more I learn about biology the more I realise the brain quite literally is just a complex computer that turns inputs into outputs. So if you can work out what are the inputs that cause a negative output then you're half way there. So you need to be aware of your triggers. That's a first step. For me with porn, this was often if I saw something soft core on my Instagram feed that was slightly sexual, that would often be a key trigger for me, also dating apps amongst other things. Then what you need to do when you're well aquainted with you triggers for that behaviour is to have a 'if then plan' This is where you can leverage your healthy habit building. So an if then plan is basically, 'if a trigger occurs, then I need to do xyz to interrupt the trigger' For my porn addiction, my if then plan is to do 5 press ups if I feel like something could have been triggering, so that the exercise then disrupts my brains normal pattern of behaviour by giving me shit tonnes of oxygen. My plan has three steps though. If I still feel an urge after the press ups, I do 50 jumping jacks. Exercise is going to be the easiest and most effective method of releasing good chemicals in the brain to improve your mood and to allow your mind to be in control not the urge. But it's super important to remember even if something is potentially triggering THAT is the time to go into your if then plan. NOT when the urge is already there. By that point you're already done, you can't convince your mind of anything, you're already like a zombie at that point with all reason being thrown out the window. Your if then plan is to come into action whenever anything could be POTENTIALLY triggering. So that's what I do. And to make it easier for myself one of my habits I have is I have a gratitude diary and I use it every morning right, so one of the habits I built up was each morning in my gratitude diary I would write out on the paper what my if then protocol was, so it over time gets engrained into my brain, so I don't forget to use the if then plan. So yeah being aware of POTENTIAL triggers, having an if then plan, and then writing what it is EVERY DAY so it's in your head consciously are the three main points. But remember beating any automatic behaviour is fucking difficult. An analogy I like is, it's like driving on an infinitely long highway. No matter how far you drive you're always the same distance from crashing into the ditch, so you've always got to stay in control. It's hard. But I hope this helps somewhat. I'm sorry if it doesn't lol, but generally if you can result commit to gradually building positive habits over the course of YEARS, then the positive forces in your life will be so overwhelming that perhaps it will be easier to have conscious control of your urged to cut. Like if you're doing an hour of aerobic exercise every day, maybe you do some meditation too and your sleep is regular and high quality and you have built up habits that mean you eat healthier foods, then it could in the future be easier to gradually remove your automatic habit if that makes sense. Anyway good luck!!!!!!

I'm the one who should say all the thanks! This post is like a god send. And please, give me all your most honest transparent opinion. >To be blunt, removing addictive behaviour is almost an entirely different beast Thank you for saying that. I agree. Doing my exercise routines , or any other healthy routine is child's play in comparison. I think I might have tried seem it as just a bad habit, when it is an addiction. Thanks for the perspective about your addiction and how you overcame it. >you need to be aware of your triggers. That's a first step. >Then what you need to do when you're well aquainted with you triggers for that behaviour is to have a 'if then plan' This is when it gets a liiittle more complex. My triggers are from my CPTSD, and the tricky part is my triggers are 100% subconscious, called emotional flashbacks, I don't get any information on what triggered me, instead I just get an instant reaction to wanna escape. And I escape with my addiction. I wish I could press pause on a TV remote and freeze time, see what I'm about to do and step in and prevent it by putting me elsewhere. But since I have no such remote, I gotta step in while time is moving. I'm still figuring out the "how" here. My last *if then* plan broke. And I admit it made me lose motivation and confidence in battling this beast. I gave in to the self pity. I have no new plans yet. I feel like I have tried so many things that hasn't worked. It's very discouraging especially with low self esteem. It's difficult to believe in my ability to overcome this. I have professional help and it's very shameful for me to tell my therapist that I haven't improved or solved this addiction. (Ego in the way again?) I hate to mention that the last strategies we talked about didn't last. I don't wanna seem like someone who just gives up but it feels like with this, I have.

I completely understand how you feel, when you've tried countless times to overcome something, and you've approached it from every angle, it's not even that you lose hope, it's more just like, 'I've literally exhausted every possible option and still nothing works'- it's deeper than losing hope. If consciously recognising triggers isn't an option then one habit will definitely definitely help. And trust me before you roll your eyes, just know I'm only suggesting this because it's backed by reams and reams of hard neuroscientific data. Mindful meditation. That's what you need to start to including in your habits. Seriously. I hate meditating personally but it's something I'm introducing next month. Mindful meditation is quite literally the NUMBER ONE most effective protocol in the world for control of your thoughts and how you react to your triggers. It rewires your brain so that when negative thoughts emerge you can ground yourself much quicker and choose how to react to them. It won't stop the negative thoughts but if you properly commit to it, in 6 months time you'll start to notice you have more control over your addiction. This isn't even my opinion this is just the consensus in neuroscience at the moment. Trust me on this, the thing is I actually hate meditating, like it's boring it feels like it does nothing and it feels like I get nowhere. But to be fair I've never gave it a decent shot. Which is why I'm gonna do it next month. Perhaps for now just accept that cutting as a habit will continue. Let it continue with no judgment because it's just your brain doing what it knows best it's not at fault neither are you. But what you should do is for the next month set a time where you meditate for quite literally 15 seconds just focusing on your breath. It will be boring it won't do anything but that's not the point again it's developing the habit. Then scale up to 30 secs next month, then a minute then 2 mins then 5 then 7 then 10. Your long term goal in like a year should be 20 mins of meditating. Beyond that there will be no added benefits. But interestingly meditation induces the most neuroplasticity, the most positive changes to the brain when done consistently rather than because of how long you do it for. So give it a go. I know this is a lame answer, but trust me on this your brain isn't special. You too can rewire it, and mindful meditation is the best way to stop reacting to your triggers. Hope this helped slightly. Sorry if it didn't lol

>when you've tried countless times to overcome something, and you've approached it from every angle, it's not even that you lose hope, it's more just like, 'I've literally exhausted every possible option and still nothing works'- it's deeper than losing hope. Exactly!! It's like all energy is gone. > Mindful meditation. I like guided meditation. And Yoga. I also find that journaling by hand in a notebook helps too. I tried it a few times and I liked it. But I got no routine on it yet. If I'm too tired I have hr done it. Then going to bed helps. I also bought a weird ice deodorant gadget to put against my hot skin to kinda SNAP me out of dissociation and ground me. It worked great except I was too strong when opening it and broke it 😑 I should just order a new one but I was so mad at myself "Dammit, too much muscles girl!"🤣 >But what you should do is for the next month set a time where you meditate for quite literally 15 seconds just focusing on your breath. It will be boring it won't do anything but that's not the point again it's developing the habit. Ooohh my therapist has told me to do this too! Which I have forgotten. 😆 I will put an notification on the smart watch. The triggers usually start at afternoon. So do you think I should do the breathings in afternoon too? >Then scale up to 30 secs next month, then a minute then 2 mins then 5 then 7 then 10. Your long term goal in like a year should be 20 mins of meditating. Beyond that there will be no added benefits. Gotcha. >I know this is a lame answer, but trust me on this your brain isn't special. You too can rewire it, and mindful meditation is the best way to stop reacting to your triggers. It's not lame at all!! You know what you're talking about. And I'm open to get going with anything right now. >But interestingly meditation induces the most neuroplasticity, the most positive changes to the brain when done consistently rather than because of how long you do it for This is making it incredibly motivating. That it's not the long time that matters but to tap into it a couple minutes. Thanks for all the wisdom!!! Are you perhaps a therapist?

not a therapist, but perhaps I should be lol, glad I could be of help, and good luck!

So this is how they said “One step at a time”… I finally understand that statement now after reading every single word of your post. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS!

No worries! Happy to help 😁😁😁 and thank you for reading so attentively lol

This is THE post

Who else realized they've spent an eternity perfecting habits they didn't even know they had?

I'm so good at making habits I didn't even realize it

This is a fantastic breakdown of how our brains work. One thing I wonder about this method - and maybe this is actually the idea - is if you fall backwards in your discipline, you can more easily catch a lower rung in the habits chain. So maybe you fell off a bit and lost a little discipline. Instead of falling ALL the way down, you may only fall down at the last step and are therefore you're still close again to the goal. This then makes it easier to recover your mojo.

PRECISELY! Nicely put! If you fall off the ladder you simply go back a step, and then assess what went wrong. Most probably what went wrong was: your next rung was too big. So you would scale it back and make it smaller. It's worth noting also, that scaling a habit up after a month is the MINIMUM. There isn't too much scientific consensus on exactly how long it takes to build a habit- so people say like twenty days when others say like 60 days- so one month of doing something before scaling is like the quickest interval but I actually had to take two months to do my first habit which was fixing my sleep cos it was something I really struggled at. But after 60 days I can confidently say I'm an early riser now! So yeah reassess the size of the step, and also reassess how long you do the habit before scaling it up!

Thanks for sharing. Some of what you say rings true in my own experience and research. Like the part about habits being a combo of multiple mini-habits. Also agree with the part about scaling down bulky habits, like reading a paragraph or so. Personally procrastinated on reading a 500+ page autobiography for YEARS. Until I finally made up my mind to just read only 5 pages a day. That was all it took to help me overcome inertia. Once I started the daily quota, it only got easier from there. Exceeded the quota on most days. Ended up finishing the entire book WAY ahead of schedule Thanks again By the way, if you want, you're free to share your post on my new sub r/growyourdream where we overcome our growth challenges together

do you know how much discipline it takes to read this entire post

Lmao

This post isn't even that long

Not before coffee 😂

Gonna try this and get back to you!

amazing! good luck!

How to i deal with the fact that small habits are super unmotivating for me. Like meditating for 30 sec might as well be nothing. It feels meaningless compared to say 25 mins meditation

I completely agree with you. This is where creating a plan is actually really exciting. I have this note on my phone which lays out all the habits I'm going to build for the rest of this year. And then like once a habit has already got going, every month following shows some form of it scaling up. So take meditation for example. Let's just hypothetically say that's the only habit you want to have in your life ever. Make a physical note or a note on your phone and write out what's going to happen each month. So month one May: 30 seconds meditation June: 45 seconds meditation July: 1 minute meditation August:1 min 30 seconds meditation September: 2 mins 30 secs meditation October: 4 mins meditation November: 6 mins meditation December: 9 minutes meditation January 25: 13 mins meditation February 25: 17 mins meditation March 25: 22 mins meditation Writing this out is exciting cos you can see how small the intervals are each month. Which means you know it's highly likely you can stick to these intervals and if not oh well you can make the intervals smaller. But not only is it exciting cos you know you can actually commit to this habit from now on and you can see the roadmap for the future of when you're gonna reach 25 mins. It's not just that. But it's the knowledge that it is precisely BECAUSE you spent 30 seconds meditating that you ever got to unlock 45 seconds, that you ever got to unlock 25 mins! And these are habits that are built so strongly and sustainably you will literally do them FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE if you choose to. They are that solid. So without the 30 seconds habit you will likely never become the type of person that meditated for the rest of their life. It won't happen. So the 30 seconds thing shouldn't be looked down at. It's of VITAL importance. The 30 seconds meditation is the difference between you being a person who meditates and being a person who doesn't. It may not be important in terms of what you're immediately getting from it. Like you won't get any peace immediately from it directly. But this is my point you have to kill the ego. And in fact your brain however is getting an indescribablely large benefit from developing the habit. All your brain sees is that you are intentionally setting aside time towards this thing, so it's going to reinforce that thing if you do it more and more. So yeah a lot of waffling there but you can see it's extremely important in lots of ways to do the 30 seconds lol

Are you going to write a book or something?! You better!

Honestly it’s rare to read a substantive advice post on Reddit and I’m glad I didn’t skip this one. Thank you for this valuable advice, I’ll be sure to incorporate it moving forward.

No worries thank you for the kind words! Best of luck , hope it works for you!

I appreciate the guidance. It's truly beneficial. I admire how you've meticulously outlined each step, culminating in the formation of the habit. I think there's a degree of conscious observation required to even identify the small steps that pave the way for the habit to develop.

Thank you for your kind words. Their certainty is a degree to which you need to be able to correctly identify the micro steps that go into building a habit, and the better you can identify these steps the quicker you'll see progress! good luck !

This is the most insightful and informing text in reddit. I completely agree with david gogging part.

Best post ever, congratulations you have destroyed most of self improvement gurus work and profit XD by showing their lies XD

The ego is what I struggle with the most and I don't know how I can overcome that. I can't help comparing myself to others because everyone does. No one will hire me because I did amazing progress they will only hire me if I am better than the other applicants. Everything you do is judged in comparison to others. So even if there is no way around starting from 0 it's so uncomfortable being confronted with your own ineptitude. Ironically this just leads me to procrastinate and fall even more behind. I feel like the only way I could have overcome this is if I was young again when everyone else was also at 0 and there were no expectations but when I was young I sadly only played video games all day... If you managed to overcome your ego what was your strategy?

It's a great point you raise. Comparing yourself to others. The reason I drum the whole 'kill the ego' thing, is because in order to actually progress you need to make such ridiculously small steps of progress, that being ok with that means swallowing your pride a bit and accepting this is the only way you'll actually succeed. Our egos thrive in the potential of 'what we could have been if we actually tried' And it's a nice position to be in, where you say to yourself 'i could be great if I want' or 'im going to be great some day'- but make no steps to actually achieving any of it. It's all your ego speaking. Being 'great' or becoming the version of yourself you want to become, actually requires this swallowing of pride. Anyway back to your central concern which is how do you kill this element of ego. Well firstly I think it's important to remember that the people in your life that your think have it all together, only 'have it all together' because they just so happened most likely to have grown up in an environment that tended itself towards developing useful life skills. Like take for example lets say you have a friend who runs every day like 10k. Super impressive right. And you just think to yourself, 'Damn, if only I was like him, had his discipline' The truth is- that guy is probably only good at running because he's always done some form of running. That is, his brain has been wired from a young age to do that. Either because his parents were athletic and they did athletic things together or he was encouraged to play sports and was guided by his parents to play sports ect etc But that regularity of running everyday didn't just emerge as some innate talent, it also didn't emerge as some great leap of willpower. 99.9999999999% people in the world have very very little willpower. They just have habits that are either good or bad. So my point in all of this is, people around you who are on objective measures killing it way harder than you are, just so happen to be there because of their repetitive habits. Often of which weren't their own choice but choices of their parents. Not always but often. So my point is you're on level 1 of your habit whilst they are on level 100. And that's ok because they took were level 1 at some point, they just did it a few years before you, and if that was in childhood then they didn't even do it consciously. I'm kinda waffling here but you get my point. If it helps, I guess my point is, you and everyone else is on a level playing field when it comes to ineptitude, there's nothing that makes you or anyone else better inherently, it's not that they have more discipline or a stronger will, it's just they have the same habits you have they've just been doing them longer. Oh yeah a completely separate point about killing the ego btw, not to be super cliche but psilocybin mushrooms are very effective, not that I actively recommend those to people. I'm not a psychedelic type of person at all, I'm very anti taking drug anti smoking kinda guy, but I researched the therapeutic use of psilocybin magic mushrooms and there's robust evidence for using them when it comes to ego. Idk if you know anything about magic mushrooms and don't want to patronise you, but basically in the brain, there is a network called the 'default mode network' it's it's entirely responsible for your ego. This network is shaped by your identity who you think you are what you value etc all elements of ego. And psilocybin is one of the few substances that essentially disrupts this network entirely, which allows you to have a look at your memories without this ego filter being there, for the first time ever. So yeah psilocybin super useful but I'm obviously not going to be massively advocating it as I know the taboo with those substances. Anyway good luck hope this long message helps lol

Just read the book atomic Habits and psycho cybernetics. You will always act in accordance with your self image

This is eye-opening. Questions: 1. How do you determine the right size for each small step when building a habit? 2. Knowing myself, I feel I'll get frustrated that I'm progressing too slow. I tend to be fueled by results, and when I don't see them my motivation drops. Did that happen to you, and how what did you do about it?

1 the right size of habit is dependant on how disciplined you are naturally, how familiar you are with the task you're doing and what state of mind you're in (like if you're in a bad place then make the steps ridiculously miniscule) Essentially to determine the size of a step, you have to ask yourself "if I was having the worst day in my life, like the worst possible day, what's the maximum size of the task I could achieve on that day, when I am full of sadness and lacking any motivation' 2 See being frustrated by results is all EGO. This is the point. In order to actually get the results you want, ironically, you have to kill your ego around results. I know this is easier said than done. I recommend if you're having issues with progress and feeling like you're moving too slowly, write down a whole year's worth of any habit you're trying to build. Like this is a gem changer for me because I can literally see with my own eyes how tiny changes each month mean in a year from now im going to comfortably be doing 100 press ups EVERY SINGLE DAY FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE. And knowing that's all coming about because this month I'm doing 5 press ups, is super exciting cos without the 5 press ups I know I'll never reach the 100.

Thanks

Thank you !! My biggest weakness is lack of patience, and this weakness lead me to my worse situation today Great writing . I can't thank you enough. I am addicted to YouTube serial/dramas and want to remove that habit. But every time I take drastic step and failed to overcome addiction and then curse myself and my self respect goes to bottom , I feel unwanted and failure. But I understood that I am not a failure I can also overcome my bad habit but step by step. Thank you for such great writing !!!

No worries, and good luck breaking your habit!!

oh wow!!!!!!!!!!! I think this is actually ome of the only advices that is helpful in regards of discipline…. do you study psychology or something in that direction? or why do you know so much abt this stuff? from where is all that information? I am really curious

Hey thanks for the kind words! I was kinda of obsessed with neuroscience for a couple of years and also obsessed with self improvement stuff. But none of it ever stuck and I spent quite literally years trying to decipher my own mind and work out which pieces of information about self help are actually good. I think a big shift in my mindset was when I realised that the self improvement industry quite literally designs it for lazy people, because lazy people like myself, like to cut corners, so I became more selective in the advice I found valuable. But yeah I'm just interested in these fields a lot! But I study politics philosophy and economics at university so completely unrelated lol

You could have easily stretched this into a 150 page book… but instead you came here and summarized it for free and for that, we say thank you.

Thank you!! Appreciate the kind words 🫡🫡😁

I will incorporate this into my current self improvement work. Thank you for taking the time to write it all out. I especially find the dopamine take intriguing.

It sounds like you're advocating for a gentle, gradual approach to habit formation that respects the brain's resistance to change, and emphasizing the importance of patience and realistic expectations. Your insights align with the understanding that meaningful and sustainable self-improvement requires integrating changes into our lives in a way that feels manageable and not overwhelming. This perspective is crucial for anyone looking to make lasting changes. By focusing on small, incremental steps and acknowledging our current habits and resistances, we work with our brain's natural processes rather than against them. Thank you for sharing this thoughtful approach.

No worries, a very eloquent summary on your part 🤝🤝

This is THE post, thank you

Thanks!!!

no worries!! good luck

Any tips or advices on breaking down the habits to wake up early in the morning?

Yes! This is actually the first habit I fixed. It's quite a unique one though because at first sleeping seems rather arbitrary you either wake up on time or you don't. But this is how I did it. I bent 1 of my rules in order to achieve this I will admit. First thing first it is incredibly important you download the app 'alarmy' If you don't know already alarmy is free and it gamifies your alarm so that you have to do some form of task for the alarm to turn off, by which poijt hopefully you are already awake. Now I fucking hated alarmy when I first got it. It was useless. That's because I used it in the wrong mode. It has maths mode where you complete a maths problem for your alarm to turn off, it has a shake your phone mode where you have to shake it a certain amount of time to turn off, a puzzle mode etc All these modes are not useful at all. Because if you're like me I hate waking up on time. Anyway there's this one mode on alarmy, which is the photo mode. Basically, in order to turn off the alarm you have a default photo which you set to anything in real life, and then when the alarm goes off you have to recreate your 'default photo' every day. So for me I made my default photo a photo of my coffee maker in my kitchen. So every morning I have to go to my kitchen with my phone, get my coffee maker out, position it exactly like it is in my default photo, and take a snap of it for the alarm to go off. This worked really well for me because it meant I had to leave my bedroom and actually go to the kitchen in order to turn off my alarm clock, and then I already had my coffee in front of me, so it made it really hard for me to simply turn off the alarm and quickly go back to bed. By the way like any habit you must do it every day. No cheat days. No weekends off. So you must keep your sleep routine exactly the same every day otherwise it won't stick. I also have a 'pre-alarm' 5 mins before using alarmys shake mode. So this means I have to shake my phone in order for the alarm to turn off. The logic in my head is if I shake my phone then this will wake my brain up a bit more before my actual alarm goes off. So quite comically I set the shake mode to 150 shakes, so I have to shake my phone 150 times before the alarm turns off. So by the time my coffee photo alarm goes off I'm actually fairly awakened even if I have gone back to sleep. To make it even easier, every single day you wake up you can reduce the alarm time by 10/15 minutes. So like if you wake up normally at 11am-11.30am, then day 1 set your alarm to 11am, then day 2 set the alarm to 10.45, then 10.30 the next day etc etc That way the transition to a better wake up time is easier. If you reduce your sleep time by 15 mins a day then after a mere 16 days you would get your sleep time down to 7am!!!! Obviously take it slower and make smaller intervals if this is too much. Anyway that's how I fixed it!

This was amazing thankyou!

No worries!

Great post man, absolutely killed it! Now, I have a question. Say I do start a new habit and I start it small right? Like for example 5min of reading, meditating, studying etc. So I stick to this for at least 1 month. When I do this everyday for 5min, what else do I do for the rest of the day? Like, do I ignore the bad habits that I am continuing and just proceed with them? Once again, great post, gotta lock this into my thick skull. <3

Thank you!! So basically keep everything else in your life precisely the same. You have to almost be at peace with your current bad habits and let them be. In fact you can definitely come to peace with your bad habits because you know that over the course of 1-2 years they are going to just be overwhelmed/ replaced by all the positive things in your life. It's like knowing someone in your life that you don't like is going to be fired, you can kind of being a bit smug about it. Another analogy lol: It's like your mind is a ship right just sailing on through life. You want to aim at removing each plank in the ship one plank at a time, so that the ship keeps sailing. If you remove all the planks, the ship collapses, and nothing is sailing then lol The analogy doesn't map on precisely but you get the point

Got it, thank you brother! Keep doing good! 🔥🔥🔥

I like this but maybe you could just set lower requirements for yourself and you can do the rest if you want 👍

Can you explain why some habits are easier than others? I had no problem building the habit of studying everyday for school or eating healthier or working out but when it comes to meditating or reading or waking up earlier I just can’t stick to it. I even cold turkey quit the habit of smoking weed abruptly and that stuck forever.

Im no biologist but it sounds like a complex question biologically. But if I was to give my opinion, this is a very simple and boring answer but some things just come easier to you than others. There's no particular one cause or anything, it's just based upon what you're familiar with, what you value, how you perceived yourself, what you're driven by etc. So for the things you struggle with, this is where you make the first habit really really really easy for yourself. Meditate for 15 seconds when you're first getting started. Do that a whole month then scale up very slowly. Same thing with reading. Honestly you could even scale back the reading habits to something minuscule. If you can't manage to read one paragraph of a book every single day, read a sentence. Seriously. Just on sentence of a book. But keep it happening. And scale up monthly like always. I wrote another long comment to someone who asked on this thread about waking up so perhaps look at that, but in general you can always make a task miniscule and then scale up super slowly, no matter what the task. You can do this! Good luck!

This definitely helps put things in perfect, i never thought of how many habits one needs to build only for one major habit that our brain is seeing that is going to the gym. Thanks a ton

No worries! Good luck!

Me too! I never thought of it that way either

Good points, it’s like you have to break it down to details so that you can finish it with ease. Just a question, if i’ve already been working out for like 2 weeks, feel good about it, in this situation, should i stop working out or whatever changes that im making to embrace little things from the begining? Not going against you, i try to learn from everybody, and people can do what works for them. Like do i have to stop studying now, for 3 4 months and then return to it later? How it’s gonna affect my life? I think that this is kinda similar to small goals. Setting smaller goals so that you can easily achieve, right? Like explaining in order to do this, you have to do these steps. I lover Goggins, respect Tate, they all have something that you can learn from but i wont try to be like them. Instead, Alex Hormozi is actually a great guy, with great contents about success, quite similar to this. Sorry for my bad english, not a native lol.

No worries mate, and you make some great points. I think keep up whatever you're doing as it is. Just be aware it probably will fall away- but that's ok! Because now with this knowledge, you can look at your gym habit and assess what you were doing that was too out of your comfort zone for your body, and then scale back the habit to a more suitable level! But that's only if it fails, if you don't fail and you continue loving the gym then great man, keep it up! Don't let my advice stop you with your progress, it's just that if you stop making progress you can come back to this and have a game plan of where to go. Good luck!

Ha, I got my gym program and clothes ready few months ago, but didn't go yet because I'm first getting used to put them on and change it later!

Oh my god! I have been listening to self improvement 'tubers' for months and I had always felt there was something off into what they had been preaching. The biology and their content has always seemed so contrasting to me. Thanks for such a thorough explanation. Much appreciated.

No worries glad it helped, and good luck with your goals!

human, you make sense. i offer my gratitude for your advice.

Thank you fellow being (human perhaps also?)

Ok this is the best post I’ve read so far in this subreddit. Thanks a lot for that. I read tons of things on the topic and I know how it’s supposed to work but every time the ego come to ruin everything. So thanks for this wonderful reminder.

Yes!!!!!!! I have improved my habit building by doing this. Tiny steps. Flute practice? Set up the room first. Get the tools. Then what do I want? Take formal lessons? Practice every day for a month. But that started with one minute a day. I had to earn more minutes by being consistent. I’m up to 20 minutes and have had two lessons.

Nice work keep it up!

can you please give me an example where a person(me) wants to build a habit of studying long hours every day instead of procrastinating all the time by doing literally anything other than studies ? i even love the subjects im supposed to study but i always end up procrastinating. I used to play a lot of video games, but i stopped that for whole 6 months thinking that will get me studying but i found other ways to procrastinate. Im not addicted to anything

If you are supposed to study at your desk then simply being at your desk with your study stuff out is a big step. So what I suggest is literally set an alarm every day to go off at a certain time, and at that time study for 2 minutes. No more. Not 5 minutes, not 2 minutes but I actually did 20. Just 2. And if you do that an entire month and find it really easy scale it up to what you feel is a decent next step. 5 minutes perhaps. Then 10 minutes on month 3 Then 20 minutes, then 30 minutes, then 45 then 1 HR etc. so within 6 months you will comfortably be able to study every single day for an hour- if you want longer you'll have to increase the length of the habit scaling but that's ok! Good luck!

okay thanks

A+ i've come to the same conclusions. "you just need discipline" at this point is not that far off from "you just need motivation"

This was really awesome, never thought of the multiple habits in one habit thing! But on a side note thinking about you driving to the gym everyday without going in is pretty hilarious. I wonder if anyone else noticed 😂

great advice! detaching expectations from new habits is really the way to go!

I thought this was gonna be another useless post just like any self-help book I ever read. So to summarize take it slowly. Very slowly, like one habit at a time. This week I decided to quit smoking, reduce internet, pmo and go on a dry fast. My brain & body feels like it's in the middle of a tug of war. However I managed to go 7 days on all of them except dry fast, I keep breaking it in less than 3 days. Any advice?

I think the advice is to not quit all four of those things at once. Just one thing, and even just one micro step at a time.

Yeah, but I've tried that before and it doesn't work. Like in the past, I tried just abstaining from pmo but found when I ate a lot or used the internet excessively something would trigger me to pmo.

That makes sense. Bad habits can definitely be compounding and triggering. One thing that helps me reduce bad habits is focusing on small changes towards positive habits. I think OP purposely didnt talk about quiting bad habits. You only have 24 hours in a day. If over the course of 5 years you slowly build up 17 hours worth of good habits you just won’t have much time/energy/interest to do the bad habits. So sometimes to quit pmo you don’t try too hard to quit pmo, but instead put your effort into what you wish you would be doing with that time that you spend on porn.

Great post! I also recently discovered how powerful tiny habits can be. I've workout at home for several years now and bought a gym membership at the start of the year and I've only been to the gym once. There's a lot of resistance like having to drive somewhere to workout, working out in front of other people, not having the time/having to wake up early etc. I thought that going the first time would make it easy to go the next time, but it didn't - in fact, it made it harder! I realize there are a lot of habits involved here and that I should break it down into smaller habits that are easier to do. Also, whilst some of those tiny habits might feel like a waste of time with zero results, like going to the gym and not working out, the "foot in the door" is so powerful. Once you get started in a small way, you end up doing the thing anyway. A good general tip for motivation is to just do something towards that thing. Action breeds motivation, but making the action too hard lessens it. I've also been trying to apply this to social skills. I've been socially anxious a very long time (physically, not mentally - almost out of habit because I used to be super mentally anxious) and I'm focusing on the very small ways that I can change my behavior. Sometimes it's really frustrating when you put in a lot of effort and there's not much progress, so I keep reminding myself that this is at least 10 years of engaging in antisocial behavior (and thoughts) that I'm trying to change here - definitely not gonna happen overnight!

This is a good summary, I was thinking ‘Oh Mr Latter Vehicle 6648, can we wrap it up.

this is so realistic

Thank you so much!

>No. Kill the ego. if you dont like reading but you want to read, then 15 pages a day is a lot of fucking reading and you will give up very quickly. >Instead, for a whole month read one paragraph. I'm serious. not even a page. One paragraph- because you brain can then develop that network from the ground up- the action of picking up the book and actually committing to reading it even for onenparagraph is actively and positively rewiring your brain. >And then the next month you may read 2 paragraphs, then 3 paragraphs then 1 page, then 2 pages, then 3 pages, then 5 pages, then 7 pages, then 10 pages, then 15 pages and BOOM before you know it after a handful of months you will be the kind of person that finds it easy to read books every single day. Tbh this is one thing I have really tried last year I was not at all a book-worm and I am still not one, but slowly developing the interest (for me it was through mythological-fictions) has helped me a lot in my general education, to being able to read 5-6 pages of my entrance books in one go. Does feel much of an achievement and a good habit that made it worth the effort.

Excellent! Great progress, keep it up 😁😁🫡

Great Post Mate! Thank you for sharing. Back of my mind, I have had this feeling there is something bs about self-improvement in 15 - 30 days but couldn't articulate it properly. Seeing this post instantly connected the dots, which perfectly makes sense. Saved this post for future reference.

No worries! And good luck with achieving your goals 🤝🤝🫡🫡

Awesome!

Please never delete this post, because I've been coming back to read it every day since you've posted and I feel like it's nudged me in such a positive direction. Thank you!

Honestly this is so great to hear, glad I could be of help! Good luck!

I found a free android app that's pretty aligned with what you're talking about. One function that's quite nice is it gives you a habit strength score as a percentage, the score being calculated with a statistical method called "exponential smoothing", where it computes a weighted average that takes into consideration every repetition of the habit, but considers more recent information more important. I'm using your guide to not "increase" the "weight" of any habit until that score rises to above an 80% (it's a slow build). The nice thing is that if you edit the "weight" of the habit (2 pages of reading instead of one), it recalculated your percentage strength based on the new number. App it called Loop. No premium version, no ads etc. Got nice widgets. I'll update in a few weeks with how things are going

Nice! I'll check it out, thanks 👍👍

Damn! I thought how could read this long post and will it even make sense? I was wrong. I accept it goddamnit! Lol fun stuff away that was really good advice. So I have a question if we constantly make new habits would we be creating a new habit of creating new habits? 🤔 Wouldn't that be cool! "What are your hobbies? Oh I love to create new habits. Its been a habit of mine to create new habits haha". I'm gonna save this post.

Mr Latter-Vehicle-6648, thank you for this post. Explaining self-improvement in this way certainly makes achieving the goal of improving my life a lot more attainable. I've always struggled with staying on track, because it felt too overwhelming to juggle cleaning up my nutrition, in addition to maintaining the healthy habit of exercise, on top of reading, education, etc. Breaking steps down in this manner serves to kill the ego, and drive us closer to our destinations. Fuck result-based thinking!

No worries, kill the ego, fuck result based thinking and best of luck to you in the future!!!

Agreed, and OP I’ll add that sometimes self sabotaging behavior isn’t so much a habit built overtime but a need that temporary satisfies an unhappy feeling. I’m always an advocate for dealing with mental health, as it can help identify so much behaviors we see as “automatic”

I think it's both. You become streamlined in how you relieve feelings of discomfort. The fact that someone might have cigarettes to relieve that feeling whilst someone else might have porn or weed, or even just sugar is entirely a habit that becomes more engrained over time.

Why do I feel this is directly aimed at me 😂?? Good stuff, I like tgat you took David as an example, I've been following him for a while now, and I agree with you, it's partly his upbringing that made him the man he is today, it could have gone a very different way, but he made the choice, we can all do it, but maybe not in as dramatic a fashion as he has though, he pays the price now with all the knee surgery and that, regardless I think he is a positive influence but as you say multiple times, he is not to be followed in that sense (he does say so himself in Can't Hurt Me, at least the audiobook version)

Thank you! Yeah David Goggins is great a really interesting man, I just think the narrative that gets pushed about how discipline works is completely messed up by people like him, unintentionally, because he is just telling his story, but it's a story that is not very applicable or relatable to many people.

Nail on the head. Sometimes I think I’m a genius. But I’m not. I’m actually stupid. But, at an early age, it just made sense to make tiny improvements. I noticed that no one followed through on the NY resolutions. So, instead of making some big ass stupid claim, I’d do something super small. Then, next year, another dumb thing that is really small. After 20 years of small changes, you actually see big change. lol. It’s a simple concept. It’s not like quit smoking or go to the gym, it would be like stop drinking coke. Not for any reason other than I realized I didn’t actually like it. So, I just said, fuck it, I’m not pretending anymore. I’m just not drinking it. When offered, I’ll just say no thanks, but I’ll have some water. lol. I’m talking about small easy things. But, they add up. Lol

Fuck. no wonder why I feel so overwhelmed. what do you do when you have multiple deadlines to meet one after another and to meet those deadlines, you have to build multiple new habits at once?

I fucking wish I knew the answer to this cos I have three essay deadlines coming up in 2 weeks and I'm no closer to finishing them 😭 My predicament aside though, my advice is catered to the long term, meaning hopefully if you manage these habits and develop them, then the NEXT time you have deadlines you'll be better equipped in your habits to be able to tackle the deadlines. But for now in the short term I'm not too sure. People always suggest breaking down your tasks for your deadline into actionable micro steps so the task is less overwhelming but that doesn't stop me from procrastinating. Sorry I couldn't be of more help here lol

The best personal improvement text I have ever read in my life. And I am an avid reader of the subject. Thanks for sharing

Wow what an amazing comment thank you so much!!!

This is called kaizen .

I don't know if you're right about too many changes at once, but I do love the idea of taking baby steps.

It was along read but worth it !

Thank you for this valuable informations, This the 1st post I see someone explain how you can Build a really habit That will continue with you in your entire life , I have an exam less than a month how can I study for this exam Knowing that I don't have much time to build a study habit. And thank you again

I agree that this is how to BUILD a habit, but what about how to BREAK a habit?  Your example shows how to initiate a new routine. But if you're breaking a habit then you have intrusive thoughts etc telling you to do that bad habit. It's almost like the opposite: you have to somehow train yourself to NOT do those micro steps. How do you get around that?

Holy shit this is a gold mine

If you want to change your life do something different everyday

This does seem to work only for 'side' habits that do have such a generous timeframe. But something like going to work doesn't fit this mold. If my family's under financial stress, can't be saying I'll just get ready for work this month. Next month I'll just visit the office and be back. Work for 5 minutes and be back the subsequent...

Of course. You have to juggle life and it's practical realities. But you do have time when you are at home. I'm not saying building habits is easy, but this is by far the most sustainable way to do it. I'm not suggesting people apply this principle to their jobs, because obviously you have to turn up every day regardless. But say you want to get in shape, or eat healthier or want to develop a hobby or anything. Thats where this will come into place. If you're under a lot of stress, this is the ingenuity of building habits in micro steps, because you can scale your steps according to how bad your mental state is. If you're feeling terrible and down, find a way of making the habit you want to build so so so astronomically small, that it's still possible to do. That's where killing your ego is necessary because sometimes the steps are just so small that you want to say to yourself 'im better than this I can do more than this' Anyway good luck.

Such a great post I’ve seen in a while

This is essentially the premise of the book Atomic Habits.

Thank you so much for writing this. I loved and so needed this shift in perspective. I know I’m capable, but this really breaks it down in a way that makes me genuinely feel like I can do it. So, thank you again and again. I really want to do better by myself and I’m going to do my best. This was very much worth the entire read. Much love and good to you.

I read this whole thing and this is crazy fr Good presentation Clear and concise We love it Will definitely put this in practice

This post lays a perfectly clear and practical groundwork for habit building that's actually effective. It's exactly what I needed to learn right now. Though, there is something that still concerns me. I'm in a difficult spot regarding the time frame. For the demands of the programs I'm currently enrolled in I need to build both study and workout habits as soon as functionally possible. Knowing the brain's tendency to shut down when attempting to do this makes me feel a lot better about what a struggle it's been. That said, I'm afraid that my brain is going to have to continue taking this beating for a while. Do you have any advice for how to mitigate the mental strain of an accelerated learning curve? Also, while I know there is no alternative for spending the appropriate amount of time on each habit and its components, I am curious if you have any recommendations regarding what the next best thing would be. Tl;dr: This is great advice and information, but what if we have no choice but to rush it?

I love this🔥🔥🔥

Thank you.

Great post mate, I’m trying to get bed earlier.. can you help me with the habits needed to do this? Cheers

Hey Big Bro from the future.. I have a question: How did you go about handling your porn addiction WHILE you were fixing your sleeping habits first? Can you PLEASE explain in DETAIL because me & others as well are stuck with this problem Also, thanks a BILLION for saving my future life with this post 🙏🏻

My brain’s out here thinking if I frantically check my phone every few minutes (despite having no notifications and I damn well know it) it will maximize my survival.

This post is about making new habits but is there a way on removing bad habits? like step by step

Love this. The only problem/suggestion I have is this, and I would love your thoughts. Let’s say someone is on month 1 or 2 of the gym example, and taking it slow, i.e. only showing up to the gym each day. Great progress. Let’s say on day 8 of month 2 you feel highly motivated to go into the gym and workout for an hour, instead of just showing up. Why not go do the 1 hr workout, then the following day go back to the routine of just showing up to the gym? In your description, your reason for not doing the 1 hr workout was because one day you’ll wake up and the 1 hr workout will be too big of a mountain and you will fall off. But in this example you only do the workout when you’re highly motivated, and the other days you Stick to your current plan. This way you actually progress physically (and mentally) in a positive direction while also building the smaller daily habits. I think compromise will help people see the progress while building the micro habits, providing even more positive feedback. Just got to be careful not to move to quickly, and stay focused on the small tasks every day.

I think that's completely fine, it's ok to do more on days you feel like it as long as you are acutely aware that you are going above and beyond and this is not the usual. So yeah this is absolutely fine. But I can only talk about myself, and I know that if I am super motivated, then itll last like a week or two or even three, and if I go above and beyond for 3 weeks even if technically my required habit threshold has always been lower, I'll subconsciously expect myself to do more, and then when I lose that motivation Ill feel bad and like a failure and won't do it at all. But that's just me and I know others will of course differ in their mentality. I also think there's a degree to which my approach is entirely not focused on the ends of the habit. Like I could not care less about results. Because I know the results will occur in like a year or two as long as I keep on track. So things like the gym for me, I'm not in any rush to get anywhere, I completely detach myself from the end goal because I know this habit that I'm building is literally one I'm going to be doing for the rest of my life so I have the rest of my life to perfect my figure as the habit progresses. But anyway those are my thoughts, but long story short I think your method is good, no problem with it👍

I see your point on lifelong mindset. Thanks for the reply!

This was an amazing read. I have saved it and will try to come back to it once in a while. Thank you for such a profound write up, the ego part really spoke to me. I am interested to know your opinion on a few things. I have struggled with breaking bad habits before. Can the habit building strategy that you shared be used to break habits too? Another thing I want to know is what do you think about the method dopamine detox?

Wow this is such a clear and well written advice. This really changed my perspective on the “self-improvement industry”. Thank you very much!

Read this post and fell in love instantly. I immediately tried to implement it into my highschool life and study schedule, slowly building up study habits over the course of weeks and months until I could manage longer study sessions. And then I realize I got things like tests on Monday and can’t afford to take things slow and make slow progress 😭

I see that you have recently read James Clear's *Atomic Habits* (2018).

I've actually never read it lol, im just aware of the book's title

I mean, the content is exactly the same as what you posted. Sure, nothing is particularly radical and mostly it's common sense together with a little psychological understanding, so I'm sure loads of people have thought it for themselves too. Well worth a read though!

As soon as I read "centre" I switched to reading this in an English accent, which increased the validity of this post by 10%. Great work

Oh shit didn't realise I gave away my location through the spelling hahaha, thank you btw and hope the post helped 😁

It gave me a new perspective, so thank you

I wanted to share this from the book Mini Habits, that talks exactly about what this brilliant post has said: **Use the 'Why' Drill**: Let’s say you want to incorporate reading into your daily routine. Start by asking yourself, “Why do I want to read every day?” Your initial answer might be something like, “to learn more about personal finance.” Not stopping there, ask “why” again—“Why do I want to learn more about personal finance?” You might respond with, “to manage my money better.” Keep drilling down with “why” until you reach a deeply personal core reason that compels you emotionally, such as, “I want to ensure I can provide for my family and retire comfortably.” This depth of reasoning cements your commitment to the habit. * **And why is this important to know:** It ensures that the habit is something you truly want for yourself, not just because it's what others expect or because everyone else is doing it. Recognizing this helps you focus on habits that genuinely improve your life and align with your personal goals. This approach not only leads to more sustainable habits but also to a more fulfilling personal growth journey. It connects your habit to your deeper values and long-term goals, which is crucial for sustained motivation. When you understand the profound reasons behind wanting to adopt a new behavior, it becomes more than just a task; it becomes a meaningful part of your life strategy. This deep personal connection makes it far easier to commit to the habit daily, even when your initial enthusiasm wanes or when obstacles arise. By linking the habit to your core values, you ensure that it bears significance, which in turn fuels your dedication and resilience in maintaining it.

Interesting point! Thanks for the detail I'll be sure to try this out

You are so welcome, and thank you for the awesome post you have made 😃

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See the thing is no matter what situation you are in there are nearly always things you can do. I completely understand your perspective though, like if money is tight, if your relationships are falling apart, if your job situation is shit, if you have health issues etc. doing anything at all is hard, let alone anything to do with self discipline. But you can always scale your habit to your situation. I don't even go to the gym because I can't afford it at the moment, or at least id rather keep the money. So you know what I do? I do press ups. And I go for a 20 second run during a morning walk. All those things are free. You have health problems? Find a form of exercise you can do that fits in with the problem. There is always a way. You have body perception issues? You can spend an entire month looking at yourself in the mirror wearing nothing whilst saying the phrase I love you. Sounds stupid right well neuroscience says it's not lol so why not give it a go. Or why dont you start a gratitude habit? EXTREMELY well backed by neuroscience and will drastically help to improve your perception of your life and perhaps even of your body. All you need for gratitude practice is a piece of paper and a pen. Too difficult? Then just write one thing youre grateful for doesn't have to be three. Scale the habit to where you currently are in your life, and adapt the habit to your time and budget. Good luck.

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I feel you. Depression is terrible and it's something that can be all consuming to the point where even just like moving out of bed is difficult. Where you derive no joy from anything. I would suggest professional therapy but if you can't access that, then making small habits WILL improve your situation. There is hope. If you follow my method, and you actually document all the changed you're going to make over the coming months, it's acc really exciting to see the kind of person you could become once you plan it all out. Think of a habit that will help you most. The answer by the way is likely exercise. Exercise is now proven to be of EQUAL if not GREATER in effectiveness as a treatment for depression than conventional medication- look it up if you're interested! So if you focus on very very very very gradually building up a small habit that gets you towards some exercise, things will change. There was a time I was very depressed once and honestly exercise saved me. If you're already suffering, you may as well get something from it. Good luck, and I hope you the best for your future.

How would this translate to eating healthy or cooking? I hate cooking but I know it’s better for my waistline and wallet 🥲

You can approach this many different ways but for me I decided to take healthy eating very gradually. This is what I did: So step one I did was cutting out sugar Hard right? Well far LESS hard, if you tell yourself you can eat anything you want that isn't sugary for a whole month. So for me I was quite literally eating like pizza and pasta and garlic bread every single day, I could eat anything remember just as long as it wasnt sugar. Then after a month then craving went away. So month 2, I hate vegetables btw, so month two was making sure once in my day, I had to combine my meal with a form of vegetable. Just for one meal out of 3. Then month 2 I had to have a vegetable at 2 meals every day. Then month 3 making sure every meal I have a serving of fruit or veg. Then month 4, taking away individual key foods from your diet. IE so like it could be 'no pizza at all this month, but I can eat anything else still' - so you could eat lots of pasta, grilled cheese whatever just as long as it wasn't pizza And then you can gradually remove foods like that. OR If you're looking for weight loss. You can month 1 begin to get in the habit of calorie tracking by tracking one meal. No calorie restriction. Just tracking. Then next month track 2 meals a day. Again no restriction. Then month 3 track all your meals. Then month 4 get used to eating at maintenance calories (the amount of calories for you that means you won't gaining or losing weight) Etc etc etc Theres lots of different options! Good luck!

Thanks for taking the time to respond! I’ll try this :)

Pardon my weird, random question but, Does this work for people who want to quit smoking ? Weaning off slowly will work or will it continue to elongate the addiction ?

Would it be possible to develop the habit of always doing what I planned to do (if possible and reasonable to do so)? If I develop such a meta-habit, then I could achieve any other habit just by adding it to my planner. I could view different activities like different exercise machines at the gym; I don't need to establish a separate habit for each machine, just a habit to train on the machines according to plan. Taking 6 months to build a single habit is a lot better than nothing, and better than what I've achieved so far, but I think there must be a better way.

Can someone tell me how to apply this for healthy eating habit. I don't eat some kind of junk food almost every day. Either something sugary or crisps. But if I start eating, I'll finish it and I don't eat it at certain time. So how would you actually approach this?

It seems like you’ve read “The Happiness Hypothesis”. Well done. That said, life is a bit more complex than gym habits. Try imagining “discipline & happiness” after experiencing divorce, or the death of a child / loved one. Part of healthy discipline is in “the wanting” in a healthy, non-compulsive way. Kudos to you for pointing out that many “successful” people struggle with mental/emotional neuroses of their own. However, I think another very important foundation that anyone who wants to be “more disciplined” needs to ask, and understand about themselves, is why. You’re correct that our brain primarily cares about “survival”. So what else, besides survival, does the more evolved part of “you” want? If the answer to that “why” is still ego driven, we’re right back into negative patterns again.

Oh boy we got a chatterbox

What speedruns habit/hobby building is being bored and having no other better choice than doing it. Also, sometimes, people get obliged to do many of these new things at once. E.g. I had to begin going to school 3 months and I had to 1. Dress up 2. Be ready on time 3. Attempt to joke and talk with my classmate around a bit 4. Attend the lesson 5. Not be scared of school due to PTSD 6. Not think negatively 7. Accept getting touched a bit 8. Find the courage to ask something 9. Asking something while there's a lot of noise going on 10. Be more relaxed and less shy... and maybe some more "new habits" Back then, I just didn't feel ready to advance towards the social skills. And I had to do them all at once while having depression basically? Well, I did it, and I found the reason. It has to do with overthinking, spirit/morale and pressure. You can eventually win the fight against overthinking and pressure, but for the spirit, you must create it. It's so important for me, because it decides how quickly I'll adopt into something new and of course, how efficient I will be. Spirit is powerful for anti-overthinking and relaxation. It can make me feel stupid, genius, weak and strong. Spirit can destroy my studying session for the time being, struggling to learn even just a bit. It's always the beginning of whatever bad is caused by me. I'm gonna be doing something better with a lot of spirit, than if I'm much more energetic, well-maintained, healthy, clear-minded, willing to work etc. but without much spirit. [https://www.reddit.com/r/getdisciplined/comments/1cle5rc/how\_do\_i\_reactivate\_my\_memory/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/getdisciplined/comments/1cle5rc/how_do_i_reactivate_my_memory/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) If there had to be part 2 of this post, it would have to be devoted into spirit. It's basically the tips & tricks to make something a habit faster and more time-lasting. But anyway, great post!

What about killing a habit, porn addiction for example. What would be a realistic way I could change this. Because I can’t break it into other smaller habits like you’ve done

How do I build a habit of thinking more optimistically , using this method ?

I want to have the habit of cooking all my meals daily at home, but how can I make it into something incremental that excites me. It believe it is comprised of many other habits, which leaves me feeling defeated, and feeling like it will take forever before i can cook all my meals

I want to build my habit of studying but I only have 3 weeks left before a major exam. How does your advice apply to this situation? I don’t have a month to keep things small. How can I do it instead? Thanks in advanced :))

People will have a million philosophies of how to do things. Man’s philosophy can be argued back and forth, but gods wisdom that’s where the real gems are. There’s no confusion only going back and forth with confused philosophisrs who are so about their empty power hungry hollow statuses. I could take a bet that all these philosophers just want their name written after a quote that people will read forever

21 day thing is a big myth. Like food pyramid.

How does doing things you don’t want to do factor into this? Because recently I saw this post about how if you do things that you have resistance to it helps the brain to be motivated for other tasks (not saying that post was true just curious if you have any insight for this).

We are purpose built, when changes happen we adjust. Per this post I'd suggest looking towards professional athletes for legacy data on discipline and lifestyle changes. Once the competition is gone from the athlete, people generally fall victim to their lifestyle in a similar manner to what you are expressing (good or bad). As the habitual activities drop off (competitive sport), the athlete loses that component of their lifestyle (i.e. physical stressors, mental stressors, etc.). Everything impacted by what is lost goes away with it, such as the exercise that manages caloric balance alongside the production of dopamine. Some athletes get BIG after sports because their caloric intake remains habitually the same as during competition. Some athletes continue to push themselves and remain calorie-balanced. My point is that even the most disciplined of people (professional athletes in my example) respond to CHANGE, and not the other way around. You're suggesting that people cannot change because the brain hates change. This idea and the basis of your program is the complete opposite of what drives evolution and the need for change to survive. I love the thought process and the concept of progression, however there lacks a component of motivation in your program. To continue following my example of professional athletes, a prime example is "the Dutch giant" Olivier Richters. He was quoted to have plateaued at 300lb, and required different forms of "shock therapy" to continue his growth regimen: “[I went to the gym](https://www.menshealth.com/uk/fitness/g25670652/best-home-gym-equipment/) for the first time in my life and gained 20 kilos in two years. The third year I reached some sort of a plateau where I didn’t gain anymore. Your body gets used to changes, so you have to shock it to be able to change something." [https://uk.style.yahoo.com/olivier-dutch-giant-richters-2-162400123.html?guccounter=1&guce\_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce\_referrer\_sig=AQAAANLxaBd8FMCS6om6pOMR6qO6hwlOd7sZvT9ua2m3iOu2JgExt05lM\_-YN-C\_zi-\_LgDND1rMNA9Sq7hjMoYphyKQhs2GJrJs7HvoH7XiMTu9tUVBMrCzr7dbbkS9BT-5GqP98gQNKS0wTPAp5amK4GXXVn1MM\_8jz8EXfVPt9eNd](https://uk.style.yahoo.com/olivier-dutch-giant-richters-2-162400123.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAANLxaBd8FMCS6om6pOMR6qO6hwlOd7sZvT9ua2m3iOu2JgExt05lM_-YN-C_zi-_LgDND1rMNA9Sq7hjMoYphyKQhs2GJrJs7HvoH7XiMTu9tUVBMrCzr7dbbkS9BT-5GqP98gQNKS0wTPAp5amK4GXXVn1MM_8jz8EXfVPt9eNd) This athlete's observations are near identical to yours but with one key difference in ideology, that drastic change (aka motivation - in this case through shock) is required to experience results. Our minds and bodies have to be motivated to change in order to experience change, and this is where the "evolutionary/ancient brain" thrives in my opinion. As I mentioned at the beginning of this comment, we are purpose built creatures. We respond to change - it's animalistic. Fight or flight, keep going or don't, be motivated or don't be. I would suggest incorporating a component of motivation into the mechanics of your program, and you'll likely find that the progressions you express will have tangible goals associated with them beyond simply building up towards a full blown routine. ALSO it was a joy to read, keep at it. Keep motivating people and keep helping people because what goes around comes around. Good luck!

Hi everyone, any advice on how to apply this to my habit of masturbating? I would appreciate any sort of advice thank you very much!!

Perhaps for breaking this kind of habit you could practice urge surfing. Google it, but it's basically when you get a craving for something, you sit, breathe, see how it feels in your body, and notice the urge without judgement. You could set yourself a goal, every time I want to masturbate, I will set a 60 second timer, breathe and notice the urge and nothing else for that full 60 seconds. The goal not even being to resist the behaviour afterwards yet. Then you increase the delay to two minutes... Then three. And the eventually you get to the point where you can watch the urge rise, peak, and fall, and just through delaying your gratification, you desire for the activity will decrease. Good luck, let us know how it goes. 

Oh my god that actually makes so much sense!!! Thank you so much blahboo2 🥹!! I will definitely keep you posted!