Today, I just wanted to share with you an inspiring poem that I came across  that I really enjoyed.

I hope it speaks to you in the way it spoke to me

One Life

One song can spark a moment,
One flower can wake the dream
One tree can start a forest,
One bird can herald spring.

One smile begins a friendship,
One handclasp lifts a soul.
One star can guide a ship at sea,
One word can frame the goal

One vote can change a nation,
One sunbeam lights a room
One candle wipes out darkness,
One laugh will conquer gloom.

One step must start each journey.
One word must start each prayer.
One hope will raise our spirits,
One touch can show you care.

One voice can speak with wisdom,
One heart can know what’s true,

One life can make a difference,
You see, it’s up to you!

Author unknown

Just being in the same room as greatness inspires you to new levels of the possible.
Recently on my trip to Paris I (of course) visited the Louvre and found myself for the first time in the same room with the Mona Lisa. Now, for many people this is a moving experience, but the man who painted that piece of work is the man I was named after.

It was a remarkable moment for me.

It was as if the roomful of tourists faded away until there was nothing but me and Mona. In some ways it’s not that different a painting — there were more realistic works in the same room — but as I stared at her face I became electrified. The more I realized this was one of the most famous faces in history, the more I looked into her knowing eyes … the more I felt moved by her greatness.

I wanted to rush out and make something. To create, at that moment.
And that’s just one tiny example of how being in the presence of greatness can transform us.

‘As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world – that is the myth of the atomic age – as in being able to remake ourselves.’ ~Gandhi

How to Find Greatness

Sometimes if you write to a great author living nearby, she’ll agree to have coffee with you. I went to a book reading/signing by one of my favorite sci-fi authors, William Gibson last year and felt inspired.
I go to the public library … and am surrounded by Tolstoy, Shakespeare, Joyce, Fitzgerald, Emma Goldman, Bertrand Russell, Cervantes, Kant, Plato … an endless list of greats. A personal panel of greatness, urging me to create, urging me to be better.

I read the columns of Paul Krugman (the most important blogger in America), the musings of Scott Adams, The Last Post by Derek K. Miller. On the web, you can find greatness in the oddest corners.
I watch championship games in sports (including watching the Giants live in the World Series!), where the best athletes in the world will lift themselves up to accomplish feats of greatness.

I look for it in the people around me — someone creating an amazing experience using tea, someone helping others find their dreams, my wife quitting her day job to homeschool our kids, people giving up cars in favor of bikes … greatness is all around us!

You learn to see greatness when you happen upon it, and that is a true gift. It’s not just in famous people, but in commoners like us. If you learn to look. If you recognize it for greatness, and then use it to move you.
And soon, you use the greatness all around you to reach for greatness yourself.

And eventually, you realize that you’re always in the presence of greatness … because the greatness is within you.
And learning that? That’s the greatest gift ever.

About the Author: Leo Babauta is the author of The Power of Less and the creator and blogger at Zen Habits, a Top 100 blog with 130,000 subscribers — one of the top productivity and simplicity blogs on the Internet. It was recently named one of the Top 25 blogs by TIME magazine.

As I came off the call, which was a complete success and received rave reviews I thought back to my first ever teleseminar I’d run nearly 2 years ago. I was nervous, very nervous. I wasn’t at all sure it would be OK. I was unsure of the technology, the process how to handle questions how to do it at all. And I’d only had 12 people on the call.

But despite those unpleasant anxious feelings I went ahead and did it anyway. It wasn’t perfect, but it worked. I made some sales and got some good feedback. I had done it. I’d stepped out of my comfort zone and done it. Since that first one I’d run more and more, each one becoming easier and easier. I become more and more comfortable with the technology the process to the extent that it was a routine event, no more challenging than making a cup of tea. And all because I’d started with that first teleseminar, and kept on doing them time and again. I now run as many as 7 in a week!

This process of constantly stretching ourselves is how we grow, not only ourselves but also our business. We set ourselves a challenge, and rise to meet it. we step out of our comfort zone of what we know, to what we do NOT know.

Do you want to increase… or decrease

One of the principles of physics states that the universe is in constant vibration. The subatomic particles of every atom are always in a state of flux and change. Their state or energy level is always either increasing or decreasing, but it never stays the same.

This applies to us when we interpret that to mean that we too are always in a state of change, and we can choose whether we are increasing or decreasing.

We increase and grow by setting challenges and stepping up to meet those.
We decrease when we shy away from challenges or try to keep things the same by maintaining the status quo.

And the warning to us all is that if you don’t constantly grow, you will actually shrink.

If you are trying to stay the same, the world will progress without you and you will be left behind. Those businesses who shunned the internet and then went bankrupt when no-one was visiting the high street are a case in point. Those who shun social media and are left scratching their head wondering why advertising isn’t working any more are another.

I had a client with a fear of driving to unfamiliar places. It started when she first got married and her husband did most of the driving. She rarely drove out of her home town and when she did drive to a new place it became a major event that required planning and much psyching up to be able to do it. By avoiding challenges she had made even a minor event a huge challenge for her.

This can happen in your business and your life. When we don’t grow, we shrink. We grow by challenging ourselves and meeting those challenges head on.

It does get easier

As we continue to step outside of our comfort zone it actually becomes easier and easier. The sensation of being ever so slightly afraid gets translated into excitement and then becomes linked to a sense of achievement even before you’ve succeeded.

The real joy and beauty of stepping outside of your comfort zone is that even when things don’t come of f as you’d hoped or planed, even if you “failed” you can relax in the satisfaction that you had a go, you tried. Just stepping up in and of itself puts you in the category of extraordinary people, because the sad truth is the majority of people constantly stay resolutely stuck inside of their comfort zone and as a result have few real achievements to their name.

Simple steps to rise above challenges

1. Decide on something you want to do, be, have or achieve. Make it something that will make you feel really good when you’ve done it. Make sure it’s something you want, not something someone else thinks you should do.

2. Check that it is exciting, and just a little bit scary. Abject terror is a sign you’re stretching yourself just a little too far, but it needs to have some charge to it or you’re keeping yourself small.

3. Set a date by when you will do it. The sooner the better. Put the date in your diary and stick to it no matter what.

4. Find a mentor or get help, support or coaching if you need it. Highly successful people all have mentors to support them as they step up to new challenges, so you’ll be in good company.

5. Mark out the steps in the process that need to happen and by when.

6. Start NOW. Stepping out of your comfort zone means it WILL feel uncomfortable. It’s all too easy to put it off, delay, tell yourself you’ll do it tomorrow, or later. No! No! No! Start now, no matter what.

A great by-product of stepping outside of your comfort zone is that you increase your emotional muscle, resilience and inner strength.

For free instant access to our emotional resilience online course from Emotional Resilience Online.

About the Author: Lisa Turner and Psycademy – Leaders in Spiritual and Psychic Development. Dr. Lisa turner specialises in helping people to evolve and develop their intuition and inner strength and confidence so that they can solve life’s problems and rise above circumstances. She assists them to realise that they have more power and control over their lives than they could ever imagine. Psycademy is the only company to offer a professional certified psychic and spiritual practitioner training.

Lisa facilitates profound transformation and she’s proud of the 95% success rate experienced by her clients and students, i.e.  95% of clients get the transformation or skills they came for or MORE!

“I did stand-up comedy for eighteen years,”  Steve Martin recalls  in his 2007 memoir, Born Standing Up. “Ten of those years were spent learning, four years were spent refining, and four were spent in wild success.” If you do the math, this sums to fourteen years of hard work before Martin saw returns on his investment.

Fourteen years.

That’s a long time to remain focused on a goal without reward, especially when the path is ambiguous (“The course was more plodding than heroic,” Martin recalls).  But as he makes clear in his book, Martin found a Zen peace in the simplicity of his pursuit. He describes with relish, for example, the importance of “diligence” in becoming a star — a term he redefines to mean the ability to not work on unrelated projects — and he labels “loss of focus” as an “indulgence” that success cannot afford.

Martin’s story should resonate with those of us interested in the minimalist lifestyle preached here at Zen Habits. He injected minimalism into his life by orienting his world around a single passionate pursuit: innovating stand-up comedy. For Martin, there was never any doubt what his Most Important Task would involve each morning, and jettisoning unrelated commitments and distractions came naturally. As he discovered, when you know what your life is about it’s easy to sidestep all that threatens to clutter it.

In other words: passion breeds simplicity.

Even if we agree on their value,  however, how do we find these simplicity-generating passionate pursuits in our own lives? This is the thorny question I address in this post.

Passion Paralysis

Faced with the task of identifying their “passion,” most people have one of two reactions:

The first is a frantic search of their lives with the aim of uncovering some magical pursuit that unmistakably sings to their soul. As a writer of student advice, for example, I frequently receive e-mails from young people that begin: “I’m trying to decide what my passion should be…”  (If only it were that easy.)

The second reaction is paralysis: faced with the life-changing importance of this discovery, many people freeze — hoping for a sign from above that will make things clear. (Spoiler: This can be a long wait.)

Neither of these approaches succeed, as passion is not something that can be forcefully identified, and though it sometimes bubbles up serendipitously, this is not something you can count on happening any time soon.  So what’s a passion-seeking minimalist to do?

I found an answer in an unlikely place…

Do Less. Get More.

In the winter of 2009, I began researching a book on college admissions. Inspired by the type philosophy taught here at Zen Habits, I sought students who followed a Zen path through the college process — getting into good schools while still living uncluttered and authentic high school lives. It soon became clear that the students who pulled off this feat shared a common trait: like Steve Martin, they had organized their life around a passionate deep interest. (This interest, in turn, made them irresistible to admissions officers weary of reading the files of chronically over-scheduled and stress-addled applicants.)

To make my book useful, I needed to discover how such passionate interests are formed. After months of research, I arrived, finally, at Penn State University, where a professor named Linda Caldwell had made a career out of studying interest formation.

Excited by her results, and wondering how to translate them into everyday life, I gave her a call:

“You need to be exposed to many things,” she told me. “You should expose yourself even though you might not know if you’ll be interested.”

When you find something that catches your attention: follow-up; see if it sticks.

In other words, discovering passion requires a dedication to unstructured exploration. You have to leave large swathes of free time in your schedule (a technique I call underscheduling), and fill this time with the exploration of things that might be interesting. Of equal importance, when something catches your attention you must leverage your free time to aggressively follow up.

As Caldwell’s research reveals, true passion can’t be forced. You can participate in personality tests and self-reflection exercises until you drop from exhaustion, but it’s unstructured exploration coupled with aggressive follow-ups that most consistently leads people to a life-consuming interest.

Here are some examples of this idea in action:

• In a gap year following high school, Ben Casnocha booked an open-ended trip around the world. He left his schedule undefined, traveling with only the general goal of journaling and meeting interesting people. During this process he noticed a recurring interest in writing. Because his time was unstructured, he was able to aggressively follow-up on the interest by calling up his contacts in the publishing industry. His efforts led him to a book deal and he went on to finish the manuscript in the exotic international destinations left in his trip. He continues to write professionally today both on his blog and in magazines; he’s also a frequent commentator on NPR.
• In 2003, Dee Williams, a toxic waste inspector, was living in a spacious bungalow in Portland, Oregon. (Depending on the source, it was somewhere between 1500 to 2000 square feet of luxurious living.) Her time was consumed by the standard traps of middle class life: an extensive remodel on her home, car problems, the struggle to pay bills, and so on. A committed environmentalist, she realized she was tired of walking the walk and wanted to talk the talk (“I was a slackavist,” she recalls), so she simplified her life, selling her house and moving into an 84 square feet “tiny house” made out of found materials and parked in the corner of a friend’s yard. This move to simplicity opened time in her schedule for exploration. She soon stumbled into a community of people who were using tiny houses as a way of promoting sustainable living. She left her job as a waste inspector and started Boxcar Woodcrafts, a small woodworking company, and now dedicates her newly copious free time to teaching classroom programs on green living and sustainability.
• As a high school student, Maneesh Sethi was adamant about leaving free time in his schedule. (During his senior year, for example, he arranged a schedule that allowed him to return home after lunch each day.) He filled this free time with exploration: among other pursuits, he became Internet famous for demonstrating how to transform a tube sock into an iPod case. A computer enthusiast, Maneesh found himself one weekend afternoon at a trade conference where he met an editor of programming books. This led him to discover that the editor was considering a book on computer game programming for teenagers. Leveraging the free time in his schedule, Maneesh aggressively followed-up on the opportunity, sending over a collection of sample chapters, and finally convincing the publisher that a he, as a teenager, was well-suited to write their book for teenagers. This led, among other things, to a follow-up book, and a recurring segment on a TechTV show. Maneesh now writes full time about living an unconventional lifestyle.

This advice can be hard to follow at first. When we think about passion we think about action: we want to start doing big things right now! But the reality of passion is more subtle. You have to do less to get more in your life. It’s a virtuous catch-22: by embracing a minimalist lifestyle now, you are more likely to develop the passionate interest that will support the lifestyle in the long run.

Put another way: take a step back; relax; then open your eyes to patiently take in all that’s out there.

Author: Cal Newport, read more from Cal at his blog, Study Hacks, or subscribe to his feed.

When you have a setback you get a rush of thoughts and emotions, you try everything to stop them but they keep flooding in. How do you get back into the good space again?

First here are few things to avoid

DON’T blame others. It might make you feel a little better in the short term but long term it’s damaging to relationships and doesn’t’ solve the problem

DON’T blame yourself. It will just make you feel bad and damage your self esteem.

DON’T try to numb out. You know what I’m talking about. Eating chocolate, having a drink because “you’ve had an awful day”, watching TV or surfing the internet. It distracts you but doesn’t solve the problem.

Instead here is a simple 5 step process that enables you to simply and easily recover from any set back.

Give yourself some time to really feel what you feel.

We get socialized to block out and numb out our emotions, to pretend not to feel them so we don’t’ give ourselves time to feel our disappointment, upset, anger or whatever label the emotion is.  So take some time out and really allow yourself to feel what you feel. Don’t try to block it or stop it, just feel it.

Remember that all setbacks are there to help you learn and grow.

So as the emotions start to ease off, start to ask yourself some questions that will empower you… like: what could I do differently next time? How can I change this? What do I need to learn from this? How can I use to grow bigger than this problem? Everything that happens has its root cause somewhere in the past. It might be a thought a word or an action. Ask the right questions and you can move away from being “problem focussed” to feeling Ok no matter what is going on.

Develop a sense of trust that all is well.

Nothing is ever lost – it just gets moved around. So you never really lose anything. It will come back to you. You WILL recover. Don’t think about things in terms of “mistakes”. Imagine that nothing is a mistake, that everything is unfolding perfectly. Ask yourself “what if this was the best thing that ever happened to me? What would a likly outcome have to be for that to be true?” Even if that doesn’t happen, just thinking it will make you feel better in a positive way.

Find the hidden opportunity.

Napoleon Hill says that opportunity usually comes disguised as a setback. So dig a bit deeper and find the hidden opportunity. If you do this you will be one of the rare few people who do this – and those rare few end up being the successful ones.

Consider doing some personal development work to improve your emotional resilience.

Just like exercising to improve your body, you can improve your emotional and mental strength too with coaching, which is specifically designed to move people forward in all ways.

And now I would like to invite you to claim your free instant access to emotional resilience online course from http://www.psycademy.co.uk/emotional-resillience/

About the Author: Lisa Turner and Psycademy – Leaders in Spiritual and Psychic Development. Dr. Lisa turner specialises in helping people to evolve and develop their intuition and inner strength and confidence so that they can solve life’s problems and rise above circumstances. She assists them to realise that they have more power and control over their lives than they could ever imagine. Psycademy is the only company to offer a professional certified psychic and spiritual practitioner training.

Lisa facilitates profound transformation and she’s proud of the 95% success rate experienced by her clients and students, i.e.  95% of clients get the transformation or skills they came for or MORE!

A few strong instincts and a few plain rules suffice us.’ ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Life can be ridiculously complicated, if you let it. I suggest we simplify.

Thich Nhat Hanh’s quote, which I’ve stolen as this site’s subtitle, is the shortest guide to life you’ll ever need:

“Smile, breath, and go slowly.”

If you live your life by those five words, you’ll do pretty well. For those who need a little more guidance, I’ve distilled the lessons I’ve learned (so far) into a few guidelines, or reminders, really.

And as always, these rules are meant to be broken. Life wouldn’t be any fun if they weren’t.

The brief guide

less TV, more reading
less shopping, more outdoors
less clutter, more space
less rush, more slowness
less consuming, more creating
less junk, more real food
less busywork, more impact
less driving, more walking
less noise, more solitude
less focus on the future, more on the present
less work, more play
less worry, more smiles
breathe

About the author: Leo Babauta is the author of The Power of Less and the creator and blogger at Zen Habits, a Top 100 blog with 130,000 subscribers

“The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.” ~Confucius

Last week I sat on top of Mt. Shasta, a 14,179 foot mountain in Northern California. It was my first real summit and I was proud. Getting there took me through two days of snow, ice and below-freezing camping conditions, using crampons, an ice axe, and more layers than I thought I owned.

As I climbed, and especially on my way down, I began to realize the lessons required to reach the top and make it back down safely. As it turns out, the most important rules are just as relevant in the snow as they are in conquering our everyday challenges.

When was the last time you reached a mountain summit, whether outdoors or in life?

We face our own mountains everyday. Some small. Some big. There’s always a summit we want to reach. Maybe it’s running those few miles before work, making that intimidating sales call, or running your business. Goals, no matter the size, require a strategy for success.

A cold tall mountain reinforced an approach that can convert life’s everyday challenges into gratifying accomplishments.

A Guide to Reaching Life’s Summits:

Pack light.

I wish I took this more seriously. Every unnecessary piece of gear complicates things and detracts from the experience. Aside from the bare necessities, things do not make life better. They often cause more stress and keep you from what’s most important. The lighter your pack the better. Life is too short to be burdened with excessive possessions, emotional baggage or regrets. Positive thoughts, relationships and experiences weigh nothing at all. Pile them on and leave the rest behind. They’ll lift you to the top.

Take one step at a time.

Any major accomplishment can be broken down into a series of single steps. My pattern for the mountain was 15 steps up, 15 breaths of rest. I did that for 7 hours. If I would have only focused on the very top, frustration would have overcome me. If your summit is too intimidating, break it into smaller steps. Focus on those one by one. Eventually one step will be the one that puts you on top.

Don’t go at it alone.

When climbing, a partner is a must. For safety, support, camaraderie, motivation and simply to share the journey. You’d be silly (and putting yourself in great danger) to go up alone. Life is meant to be experienced with others. It makes the valleys shallower and the peaks higher. Relationships magnify experiences and help you do things that prove impossible alone. Don’t leave home without your support team.

Listen to the experts.

Halfway up, a passing guide told us if we couldn’t get to the top by 12:30 at the latest, then to turn back. Chances of late day thunderstorms were too great. As amateurs we would have had no idea. While we all ought to experience our own paths, it’s foolish not to learn from and observe the guidance of experts. Choose your life models wisely and keep them close by on your journey.

Slow down.

As Yvon Chouinard of Patagonia says, “It’s about how you got there. Not what you’ve accomplished.” Despite what colleagues and competitors may tell you, there is no rush. Rushing on the mountain risks slipping, not acclimating to thinning air, exhaustion and possibly death. In life the biggest risk is that you miss the wonders of everyday experiences in your pursuit to the top. The top is secondary to the process.

Look back and take in the view.

There’s never any guarantee that you’ll get to the top, but you always have the ability to stop, take in a deep breath, smile and enjoy the view-whether it’s miles of wilderness or two feet of fog. It’s all wonderful. Every moment of life is a new view to appreciate.

Save some energy for the trip down.

We thought the summit was “just over that peak” half a dozen times before it actually was. Conserve energy. Things will inevitably take longer than expected. Don’t be discouraged. Budget your capital, energy and drive appropriately. Rarely is anything in life an all out sprint. Treat it like a marathon. You may need your reserves when you least expect it.

Getting to the top is optional. Getting down is mandatory.

These are Ed Viesturs’ famous words; the first U.S. man to summit all 14 peaks above 8,000 meters with no bottled oxygen. The summit will be there tomorrow and likely so will yours. If more planning, a stronger team or more support is required, then save the summit for a time when the payout is safer and more probable. If you are outmatched, know when to turn back, only to return stronger and more savvy tomorrow. Stay objective and don’t let short-term excitement get in the way of long-term fulfillment.

Failure is a part of the process.

If we would have started our climb the week before, conditions would have been too grave to make it. Be ok with not reaching the summit every time. Falling short is inevitable. You will never learn more than from your failures…at anything. Embrace them.

A daunting summit is nothing more than a challenge. A challenge is simply an opportunity in disguise. You won’t summit every one you come across, but you will become a better person with each attempt.

There will always be another mountain. You are not meant to conquer them all. Past summits are simply preparing you for the next. With the right strategy, you’ll put the top within reach. When your summit arrives, you will be ready.

“It is not the mountains we conquer but ourselves.” ~Sir Edmund Hillary

About the Author: Read more inspiring articles from Scott Dinsmore at Reading For Your Success where he is committed to discovering your own path to personal and career success, on your terms, through “action-based reading.” Subscribe here to Scott’s future articles.

Much of our marketing is online now and we’re getting the hang of managing our brand across the Internet, or at least I’m sure we’d like to think so. The challenge is managing your brand on and offline, consistently.

‘It is preoccupation with possession, more than anything else, that prevents men from living freely and nobly.’ ~Bertrand Russell

I know there are many of you who want to declutter, or who have already gotten started … but you hit a roadblock.

And it’s a big one: you don’t want to be wasteful. Your gut tells you that getting rid of perfectly good things — things that cost a pretty penny to get in the first place — is wasteful as hell.

I recently received this letter from Marissa, a brilliant reader:

“I am currently going through my possessions for the umpteenth time to have/own less. My issue I am having now, is that when I donate/throw away items I don’t “need” I feel like I am wasting money. At one point in time I used my hard earned money to buy this item and now I just want to get rid of it. Though this does help in my future shopping habits so I don’t buy anything on a whim or just because I want to have it, I feel like I am throwing away money into the trash/donation bins.”

This is such a common question that I thought I’d address it here — if you’re holding onto stuff because you feel it would be a waste of good money if you got rid of it, here is the answer you are looking for:

I hereby release you of your burden.

You are free. You bought these items with hard-earned money, and you don’t want that money to go to waste, so you’ve been holding onto them. It’s a burden that keeps you from freeing yourself of these unneeded possessions — it forces to you keep the space they occupy, to maintain these possessions, to constantly see them every day even if you don’t want them, to walk around them or trip over them or live in a cramped, cluttered space. This is a burden, paying penance for your initial wasted expenditure of cash.

But: the waste was when you bought it, not when you get rid of it. You bought something you didn’t really need — and the real waste would be to ignore this and not learn from it.

So here’s how to make sure that by decluttering possessions you don’t need, it’s not a waste:

1. Learn your lesson.

This might sound condescending, but it’s not meant to be — if we don’t realize our mistakes, we can’t learn and avoid them in the future. So realize: you shouldn’t have bought the items in the first place. Avoid doing this in the future, by buying as little as you possibly can. Stop being a consumer, and start living.

2. Realize that keeping the items is wasteful.

If you keep stuff you don’t need, it costs you money — you pay for the space to store it (lots of possessions means bigger homes or storage containers), you pay to maintain it, it costs you time (and therefore money) to keep it and go around it, you have to fix things when they break, you have to sort through things to find things, you spend time moving things around, and so on. Getting rid of this unnecessary stuff frees you of this waste.

3. Find someone who will use it.

It’s a waste to keep something when you’re not using it (a good reason car-sharing is a much better use of cars than private ownership, btw). So find a friend or family member who needs it, or give it to Goodwill or some other such charity, or donate it to a library that will let many others use it. Consider starting a neighborhood tool library, or a book-sharing spot in your community. When someone else uses your items, it’s not a waste.

4. Test the waters.

If you’re unsure of whether you’ll need something later, put it to a test: have you used it in the last six months? If not, you probably don’t need it (unless it’s seasonal — then ask if you needed it in the last year). If you’re still unsure, box it up with today’s date, and check on it in six months — if you never needed to open the box, you didn’t need it.

5. Don’t let your possessions own you.

 If you hold on to possessions because you feel it would be wasteful to get rid of them, they are controlling you. They are dictating your life, rather than you creating the life you want, living how you want to live. Let go of possessions and be free — living otherwise would be the true waste.

6. Make better use of your time and space.

Once you’re freed of this clutter, don’t waste your freed time on acquiring more stuff. Spend your time on incredible experiences, not on possessions. In the end, get a smaller house, now that you need to store less stuff, and help save the earth while you’re at it (a smaller home, along with ditching your car and becoming vegan, is one of the most important things you can do to reduce your carbon emissions).

Don’t water your weeds.’ ~Harvey MacKay

About the Author: Leo Babauta is the author of The Power of Less and the creator and blogger at Zen Habits, a Top 100 blog with 130,000 subscribers — one of the top productivity and simplicity blogs on the Internet. It was recently named one of the Top 25 blogs by TIME magazine.

I’ve written a lot about habits — it’s in the title, after all — and after all these years, and after all the questions that people have asked about forming habits, there’s one thing that seems more important than anything else.

It’s simply this: enjoy the habit.

That might seem obvious to some of you, but you’d be surprised how many people try to force themselves to do things they don’t enjoy. They try to instill “discipline” because they think it’ll make them a better person or give them a better life, but what kind of life is it if you force yourself to do things you hate all the time?

And here’s the thing: if you try to make a habit of something you don’t like doing, you’re almost sure to fail. I know, because I’ve tried it many times. If I find myself saying, “I hate this, but I can do it!” then it’s an uphill battle, and one I almost always lose. Because after a week or two of doing this, you’ll lose enthusiasm. You’ll run out of the incredible energy required to form a new habit, and then miss the habit one day, and another day, and soon it’s over.

But look at the opposite scenario — you do something you love doing. Well, how hard is it to motivate yourself to do this? You look forward to it. You are excited about it. When you actually do the habit, you’re happy, and your overall experience is positive. That’s a habit that is much more likely to stick.

I’ve done dozens of experiments in creating habits in my own life, and I’ve helped hundreds if not thousands of others form habits, and it’s a common theme — when the person doesn’t enjoy the new habit, it fails, and when they do, it has a high degree of success.

Sure, there are other factors — how consistent you are, whether you have a trigger that’s already anchored into your regular routine, whether you have social accountability, etc. But the most important factor, by far, is loving the habit.

The things we don’t like

I’ll acknowledge there are times we have to do things we don’t like. That’s a necessary part of life. But why choose such a thing to become a daily habit? If that’s what you’re doing, you should take a long hard look at whether it’s really necessary, and if so, whether you can possibly make changes to your life so that you don’t need to do this activity on such a regular basis. I’ve done this many times, and though the change in my life is sometimes time-consuming, the result is always worth it.

But what about kicking bad habits? Isn’t that hard and unenjoyable? Sure, of course. I kicked the smoking habit (almost 5 years ago), and it was difficult. Agonizing. Fortunately, I figured out that I had to put enjoyable habits in place of the smoking, and I actually looked forward to them — things like running to relieve stress, eating healthy foods, writing, stuff like that. I love those activities, and it made the whole process much easier.

How to love the habit

This how-to section will seem too obvious to some, but it seems necessary to me. How do you go about enjoying the habit? Two ways:

1. Choose a habit you already love.

This is the easy way. If you love reading, or drinking tea, or journaling, or taking walks in the park, choose something like that. Want to get active? Choose a sport you love playing, or an outdoor activity that gives you joy. Want to be more productive? Choose a work activity you love doing as your first task each day.

Or:

2. Focus on the enjoyable aspects.

If you don’t already love the habit, learn to love it. Not by reprogramming your mind to love something you hate, but by finding things about the habit you do enjoy. For example, when I started running, it was hard. I was a recent smoker, so my lungs were crap, and my legs were weak, and I’d get tired fast. But there were things I enjoyed too — getting outside, the fresh air, moving and feeling my heart beating, the beauty of nature, the good feeling after I was done. So I focused on these things, and it worked. And then eventually the running got easier and I loved everything about the activity. This kind of thing can be done with almost anything — look hard for the good aspects, the things you enjoy. If you can’t find anything, you’ve chosen the wrong habit.

In the end, discipline doesn’t work. You can’t use discipline to form a habit you hate, because what exactly do you do when you don’t feel motivated to do the habit? You find something about it to get you going, and that’s thinking about something enjoyable — the enjoyable end result, for example, or an enjoyable reward, or how good you’ll feel telling others you did it. There are many ways to motivate yourself with something enjoyable, but no ways to use the nebulous concept of “discipline” to do something you hate.

Love the habit, and it will stick around longer.

About the Author: Leo Babauta is the author of The Power of Less and the creator and blogger at Zen Habits, a Top 100 blog with 130,000 subscribers — one of the top productivity and simplicity blogs on the Internet. It was recently named one of the Top 25 blogs by TIME magazine.