James Clear's Blog, page 18

Habit Stacking: How to Build New Habits by Taking Advantage of Old Ones

In 2007, researchers at Oxford University started peering into the brains of newborn babies. What they found was surprising.

After comparing the newborn brains to the normal adult human, the researchers realized that the average adult had 41 percent fewer neurons than the average newborn. [1]

At first glance, this discovery didn’t make sense. If babies have more neurons, then why are adults smarter and more skilled?

Let’s talk about what is going on here, why this is important, and what it has to do with building better habits and mastering your mental and physical performance.

The Power of Synaptic Pruning

There is a phenomenon that happens as we age called synaptic pruning. Synapses are connections between the neurons in your brain. The basic idea is that your brain prunes away connections between neurons that don’t get used and builds up connections that get used more frequently.

For example, if you practice playing the piano for 10 years, then your brain will strengthen the connections between those musical neurons. The more you play, the stronger the connections become. Not only that, the connections become faster and more efficient each time you practice. As your brain builds stronger and faster connections between neurons, you can express your skills with more ease and expertise. It is a biological change that leads to skill development.

Meanwhile, someone else who has never played the piano is not strengthening those connections in their brain. As a result, the brain prunes away those unused connections and allocates energy toward building connections for other life skills.

This explains the difference between newborn brains and adult brains. Babies are born with brains that are like a blank canvas. Everything is a possibility, but they don’t have strong connections anywhere. The adults, however, have pruned away a good deal of their neurons, but they have very strong connections that support certain skills.

Now for the fun part. Let’s talk about how synaptic pruning plays an important role in building new habits.

Habit Stacking

Synaptic pruning occurs with every habit you build. As we’ve covered, your brain builds a strong network of neurons to support your current behaviors. The more you do something, the stronger and more efficient the connection becomes.

You probably have very strong habits and connections that you take for granted each day. For example, your brain is probably very efficient at remembering to take a shower each morning or to brew your morning cup of coffee or to open the blinds when the sun rises … or thousands of other daily habits. You can take advantage of these strong connections to build new habits.

How?

The quickest way to build a new habit into your life is to stack it on top of a current habit.

This is a concept called “habit stacking” because you stack your new habit on top of a current habit. Because the current habit is strongly wired into your brain already, you can add a new habit into this fast and efficient network of neurons more quickly than if you tried to build a new path from scratch. (Note: I’m not the first person to figure this out. [2])

Habit Stacking Examples

To use habit stacking, just fill out this sentence…

After/Before [CURRENT HABIT], I will [NEW HABIT].

Here are some habit stacking examples…

Meditation Habit: After I brew my morning coffee, I will meditate for one minute.
Pushup Habit: Before I take my morning shower, I will do 10 pushups.
Flossing Habit: After I brush my teeth, I will floss my teeth.
Gratitude Habit: Before I eat my first bite of dinner, I will say one thing I am grateful for that day.
Networking Habit: After I get back from my lunch break, I will send one email to someone I want to meet.
Stretching Habit: After I finish my last set of squats, I will stretch my hamstrings.

Again, the reason habit stacking works so well is that your current habits are already built into your brain. You have patterns and behaviors that have been strengthened over years. By linking your new habits to a cycle that is already built into your brain, you make it more likely that you’ll stick to the new behavior.

The Next Step

To get started, simply write out a list of the current habits that you do each day. (Don’t forget about all the boring everyday routines.) Then, write out a second list of the habits you want to start. Finally, pick one habit and look for the appropriate place to stack it.

As a final note, you need to make sure that you stack habits of an appropriate size. Your new behavior needs to be small at the start. You can worry about escalating and improving later.

Happy habit stacking!

P.S.

If you are interested in more strategies for increasing your willpower and sticking to better habits, I explain all sorts of techniques and the science behind them in my Habits Workshop.

Sources

Excess of Neurons in the Human Newborn Mediodorsal Thalamus Compared with That of the Adult by Maja Abitz, Rune Damgaard Nielsen, Edward G. Jones, Henning Laursen, Niels Graem and Bente Pakkenberg

BJ Fogg recommends a similar strategy to habit stacking in his Tiny Habits program and Courtney Carver, Julien Smith, and others have mentioned the idea of habit stacking before.

Thanks to SJ Scott for inspiring me to use the word “habit stacking” from his book by that name. I haven’t read it, but I like the phrase!

What Are You Measuring In Your Life?

Imagine this…

Someone walks into the gym, warms up, does a little bit of this exercise, does a little bit of that exercise, bounces around to a few machines, maybe hops on the treadmill, finishes their workout, and leaves the gym.

This isn’t a critique of their workout. In fact, it’s quite possible that they got a nice workout in. So, what is notable about this situation?

They didn’t measure anything. They didn’t track their workout. They didn’t count reps or weight or time or speed or any other metric. And so, they have no basis for knowing if they are making progress or not. Not tracking your progress is one of the six major mistakes I see people make in the gym.

But here’s the thing: We all have areas of life that we say are important to us, but that we aren’t measuring.

What We Measure, We Improve

Count something. Regardless of what one ultimately does in medicine—or outside of medicine, for that matter—one should be a scientist in this world. In the simplest terms, this means one should count something. … It doesn’t really matter what you count. You don’t need a research grant. The only requirement is that what you count should be interesting to you.

—Atul Gawande, Better: A Surgeon’s Notes on Performance

The things we measure are the things we improve. It is only through numbers and clear tracking that we have any idea if we are getting better or worse.

When I measured how many pushups I did, I got stronger.
When I tracked my reading habit of 20 pages per day, I read more books.
When I recorded my values, I began living with more integrity.

Our lives are shaped by how we choose to spend our time and energy each day. Measuring can help us spend that time in better ways, more consistently.

It’s Not About the Result, It’s About Awareness

The trick is to realize that counting, measuring, and tracking is not about the result. It’s about the system, not the goal.

Measure from a place of curiosity. Measure to discover, to find out, to understand.

Measure from a place of self-awareness. Measure to get to know yourself better.

Measure to see if you are showing up. Measure to see if you’re actually spending time on the things that are important to you.

You Can’t Measure Everything

Critics will be quick to point out that you can’t measure everything. This is true.

Love is important, but how do you measure it?
Morality is important, but can it be quantified accurately?
Finding meaning in our lives is essential, but how do you calculate it?

Furthermore, there are some things in life that don’t need to be measured. Some people just love working out for the sake of working out. Measuring every repetition might reduce the satisfaction and make it seem more like a job. There is nothing wrong with that. (As always, take the main idea and use it in a way that is best for you.)

Measurement won’t solve everything. It is not an ultimate answer to life. However, it is a way to track something critical: are you showing up in the areas that you say are important to you?

The Idea in Practice

But even for things that can’t be quantified, measuring can be helpful. And it doesn’t have to be complicated or time-consuming.

You can’t measure love, but you can track different ways that you are showing up with love in your life:

Send a digital love note to your partner each day (text, email, voicemail, tweet, etc.) and use the Seinfeld Strategy to keep track of your streak.
Schedule one “Surprise Appreciation” each week where you write to a friend and thank them for something unexpected.

You can’t measure morality, but you can track if you’re thinking about it:

Write down three values that are dear to you each morning.
Keep a decision journal to track which decisions you make and whether or not they align with your ethics.

The things we measure are the things we improve. What are you measuring in your life?

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How to Solve Big Problems: Lessons Learned From Cancer Scientists

In late November of 1991, a three-year-old girl was diagnosed with leukemia. There was a 30 percent chance she would die.

In the coming months, she would receive a long list of chemotherapy drugs: 6MP, asparaginase, methotrexate, prednisone, and vincrinstine. The miracle was not only that these drugs could potentially cure her, but that they existed at all.

In his fantastic book, The Emperor of All Maladies, author and physician Sid Mukherjee explains the history of cancer and how brilliant physicians and scientists finally began to discover cures for the disease.

You see, for many years, doctors and scientists dreamed of finding a single cure for all cancers. They searched for a radical surgery or a miracle drug that could cure everything from breast cancer to leukemia to prostate cancer. According to Mukherjee, however, breakthroughs finally came when scientists stopped trying to tackle this large scale problem and made the problem smaller.

The first breakthrough came when Sidney Farber, now known as the Father of Modern Chemotheraphy, decided to focus exclusively on treating leukemia. He was one of the first physicians to dedicate his efforts solely to a single type of cancer and by narrowing his focus Farber was able to make significant progress against this single condition.

Eventually, the drugs and treatments Farber uncovered for leukemia led to new solutions for other cancers. By focusing on one tiny vertical, Farber uncovered answers that could be used to treat the larger problem. As Mukherjee put it, “[By] focusing microscopically on a single disease, one could extrapolate into the entire universe of diseases.” [1]

This central idea, that solving large complex problems is often accomplished by first attacking smaller micro-problems, is useful not just for cancer treatments, but for life in general.

How to Solve Complex Problems

The main lesson mentioned above is simple: When you’re facing a complex problem or trying to do something bold, start with a smaller version of the larger problem. Focus exclusively on that small problem and solve it. Use the answers to this small issue to expand your knowledge of the larger issue. Repeat.

If you take a look around, you can see this pattern playing out everywhere.

For example, consider Amazon. The company started by selling books. Once they mastered the online purchase and delivery process of books, they moved on to other products. Today, they sell just about everything.

Amazon could have started by trying to solve the big problem: how do we master digital commerce? Instead, they started with a narrow focus and expanded from there. It has been proven many times that this small-to-large approach works well for businesses, and I think it can be very useful for our personal goals as well.

The Idea in Practice

Let’s consider a few examples of how we might put this idea into practice.

Creativity. BIG PROBLEM: How do I become more creative?

Small solution: If you want to become a good photographer, then start small. Learn how to take a really good picture of a chair. Once you can take a fantastic picture of a chair, use those principles — light, composition, lines, curves — to take better pictures of everything.

Exercise. BIG PROBLEM: How can I start exercising consistently?

Small solution: If you can’t crack the fitness code and struggle to exercise consistently, then forget about every other exercise and just learn how to do one pushup. Use the steps I describe here to increase your number slowly. Stick with that one exercise for days, weeks, months. Once you prove to yourself that you can solve this small problem, use the lessons you learn to become more consistent at exercise in general.

Nutrition. BIG PROBLEM: How can I eat healthy each day?

Small solution: Want to improve your nutrition? Maybe you should ignore switching to a new diet at first. You don’t need to change all of your food habits at once. You could start by solving a very small segment of the problem: eat one vegetable today. Master that. Do it for four weeks. Or longer. Take what you learn about being consistent with that one thing and apply it to adding a second healthy food.

And finally…

Narrowing your focus is a mental model that you can apply whenever you want to start a new behavior or take on a new project that seems too big or overwhelming or complex to handle. It is a filter you can run larger problems through to approach issues from a more useful place.

So, how do you solve big problems? Start with a smaller one.

P.S.

That three-year-old girl who was diagnosed with leukemia and treated with the drugs that were discovered through the Father of Chemotherapy, Sidney Farber? It was my sister. More than 20 years later, she is alive and well.

I’m very glad Farber decided to start small.

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James Clear writes about using behavioral science to master your habits and improve your mental and physical health. If you enjoyed this article, join his free newsletter.

Sources

The Emperor of All Maladies by Sid Mukherjee, pg. 159

How to Build Expertise, Talent, and Skill: Lessons From Peyton Manning

It was the first game of the season and Peyton Manning, one of the greatest quarterbacks in the history of the National Football League, already had a chance to set another NFL record.

Late in the fourth quarter, with the ball on his own 22-yard-line, Manning stepped up to the line of scrimmage and surveyed the defense. Just before snapping the ball, he noticed something.

The Baltimore Ravens defenders were moving around in front of Manning, preparing for the play, but something didn’t feel right. After the game, Manning would simply say that he “saw something.” [1, 2]

Baltimore was going to blitz and Manning knew it. He took a step forward, spread his arms to signal a new play call, and yelled out the play, “Alley! Alley! … Alley! Alley! Alley!”

The Broncos snapped the ball. The Ravens, as expected, blitzed. Manning threw a perfectly planned pass to wide receiver Demaryius Thomas, who ran 78 yards for a touchdown. The Baltimore defenders never laid a hand on him.

It was Manning’s seventh touchdown pass of the game, tying the NFL record. And perhaps more impressive, it took Manning just four seconds to step up to the line of scrimmage, analyze the location of all eleven defenders, compare their coverage to the play he had called, recognize that they were preparing to blitz, and then call a new play. All that, in just four seconds.

Let’s talk about how Peyton Manning can do that, and how you can develop expertise in the areas that matter to you.

Here’s the deal…

The “Cocktail Party Effect”

In a variety of studies, researchers have shown that website visitors have learned to ignore the common areas of webpages loaded with advertisements. In many cases, the readers breeze right past the advertisements like they aren’t even there (yet another reason why I don’t run any advertisements on JamesClear.com). Known as “banner blindness” this phenomenon is essentially saying that as you read more articles online, you learn to ignore the irrelevant or unimportant pieces of the experience. [3]

This basic idea – that you can focus on one part of an experience and ignore others – is a cognitive psychology concept known as selective attention. It’s also called the “cocktail party effect,” which is named after the idea that your brain can pay attention to a single conversation while standing a crowded room full of people talking. Selective attention helps you filter out the noise and focus on the signal.

Selective attention is what allowed Peyton Manning to instantly assess the defense of the Baltimore Ravens and change his play call accordingly. Manning has put in thousands of hours playing the game, studying film of opposing defenses, and learning from his mistakes. As a result, his brain instinctively knew what was signal and what was noise. He knew what to focus on and what to ignore.

The result is that Peyton Manning can make snap decisions that are based on thousands of hours of experience. While a young quarterback might see a dozen possible options for what will happen, Manning can narrow it down to a few options, perhaps even one option, by paying attention to the right factors. The result is increased success, and it’s a major difference between amateurs and experts.

The Truth About Hacks

It seems that the world is obsessed with quick fixes and performance hacks. I get it. I’ve felt that way too. We all want to “hack” our bodies and brains, to find a hidden solution to mastering our mental and physical performance.

The thing is, when you look at how the top performers in the world operate and examine what is really going on in their minds and bodies, you often see the complete opposite of a hack. You see repetitions and consistency.

When LeBron James wants to increase his recovery and physical performance, he sleeps for 12 hours.
When Kobe Bryant wants to improve his skill set, he shoots 800 times.
When Peyton Manning wants to see holes in the defense, he puts in thousands of hours in the film room.

Sure, these athletes are blessed with one-in-a-million genetics, but chalking their success up to innate talent ignores a very big piece of the puzzle. I’m willing to bet that their tireless approach to mastering the fundamentals and unwaivering commitment to consistency would pay dividends for nearly anyone in any field, regardless of genetic talent.

The Secret to Selective Attention

That said, Peyton Manning does have one distinct advantage over most people looking to develop expertise: statistics.

Everything that Manning does is measured. How many interceptions he throws. How many touchdowns he throws. How many passes he completes. How much weight he lifts in the gym. How fast he runs his sprints. It’s all measured.

Why is this important? Because he has proof of whether or not he is making progress in his life and work. Because he is measuring these numbers, he is also looking to improve these numbers. And when he does something new and the numbers go up, that is a clear signal to him that this new behavior is working.

The only way to figure out what works and what doesn’t is to measure your results. If you repeat this cycle for 20 years, then you end up becoming very good at focusing on the things that matter and ignoring the things that don’t.

If you want to get better, then practice consistently and measure constantly. Use that feedback to figure out what is working and what isn’t. Then, spend your time putting in more reps rather than searching for another hack. Experts spend more time focusing on what works. And the only way to know what works, is to put the time in.

Click here to leave a comment.

Sources

Here is the video of Manning’s play. You’ll notice Baltimore safety Matt Elam slide up toward the line and shuffle his feet just before Manning changes the play.
The ugly truth about Peyton Manning by Seth Wickersham.
Banner Blindness: The Irony of Attention Grabbing on the World Wide Web

How to Build a New Habit: This is Your Strategy Guide

According to researchers at Duke University, habits account for about 40 percent of our behaviors on any given day. [1]

Understanding how to build new habits (and how your current ones work) is essential for making progress in your health, your happiness, and your life in general.

But there can be a lot of information out there and most of it isn’t very simple to digest. To solve this problem and break things down in a very simple manner, I have created this strategy guide for building new habits that actually stick.

Even more detailed information is available in my Habits Workshop and in my free guide, Transform Your Habits. But the basic principles mentioned in this article will be more than enough to get you going.

1. Start with an incredibly small habit.

Make it so easy you can’t say no.

—Leo Babauta

When most people struggle to stick with a new habit, they say something like, “I just need more motivation.” Or, “I wish I had as much willpower as you do.”

This is the wrong approach. Research shows that willpower is like a muscle. It gets fatigued as you use it throughout the day. Another way to think of this is that your motivation ebbs and flows. It rises and falls. Stanford professor BJ Fogg calls this the “motivation wave.”

Solve this problem by picking a new habit that is easy enough that you don’t need motivation to do it. Rather than starting with 50 pushups per day, start with 5 pushups per day. Rather than trying to meditate for 10 minutes per day, start by meditating for one minute per day. Make it easy enough that you can get it done without motivation.

Further reading: Identity-Based Habits: How to Actually Stick to Your Goals

2. Increase your habit in very small ways.

Success is a few simple disciplines, practiced every day; while failure is simply a few errors in judgment, repeated every day.

—Jim Rohn

One percent improvements add up surprisingly fast. So do one percent declines.

Rather than trying to do something amazing from the beginning, start small and gradually improve. Along the way, your willpower and motivation will increase, which will make it easier to stick to your habit for good.

Further reading: This Coach Improved Every Tiny Thing by 1 Percent and Here’s What Happened

3. As you build up, break habits into chunks.

If you continue adding one percent each day, then you’ll find yourself increasing very quickly within two or three months. It is important to keep each habit reasonable, so that you can maintain momentum and make the behavior as easy as possible to accomplish.

Building up to 20 minutes of meditation? Split it into two segments of 10 minutes at first.

Trying to do 50 pushups per day? Five sets of 10 might be much easier as you make your way there.

Further reading: I’m Using These 3 Simple Steps to Actually Stick with Good Habits

4. When you slip, get back on track quickly.

The best way to improve your self-control is to see how and why you lose control.

—Kelly McGonigal

Top performers make mistakes, commit errors, and get off track just like everyone else. The difference is that they get back on track as quickly as possible.

Research has shown that missing your habit once, no matter when it occurs, has no measurable impact on your long-term progress. Rather than trying to be perfect, abandon your all-or-nothing mentality

You shouldn’t expect to fail, but you should plan for failure. Take some time to consider what will prevent your habit from happening. What are some things that are likely to get in your way? What are some daily emergencies that are likely to pull you off course? How can you plan to work around these issues? Or, at least, how you can bounce back quickly from them and get back on track?

You just need to be consistent, not perfect. Focus on building the identity of someone who never misses a habit twice.

Further reading: How to Stop Procrastinating by Using the “Seinfeld Strategy”

5. Be patient. Stick to a pace you can sustain.

Learning to be patient is perhaps the most critical skill of all. You can make incredible progress if you are consistent and patient.

If you are adding weight in the gym, you should probably go slower than you think. If you are adding daily sales calls to your business strategy, you should probably start with fewer than you expect to handle. Patience is everything. Do things you can sustain.

New habits should feel easy, especially in the beginning. If you stay consistent and continue increasing your habit it will get hard enough, fast enough. It always does.

Click here to leave a comment.

P.S.

If you’d like more detail information on how to master your habits, check out my Habits Workshop here.

Sources

Habits: A Repeat Performance by David T. Neal, Wendy Wood, and Jeffrey M. Quinn
Special thanks to BJ Fogg, Leo Babauta, and Kelly McGonigal for their research and work on habit formation and willpower. I have learned a lot from each of you.

The Photographer Nobody Knew: Lessons on Sharing Your Gifts With the World

It was 2007 and John Maloof was working on a book about Chicago’s northwest neighborhoods. On this particular day, he was hoping to find a few pictures from the 1960s that he could use in the book.

What he ended up finding was far more interesting.

After purchasing boxes full of negatives from a local auction house, Maloof began developing some of the images. When they finished processing, he was stunned. They were incredible. And there were tons of them. More than 30,000 in these boxes alone. Whoever had taken these pictures was surely one of the most prolific and talented American photographers of the last hundred years.

And yet, when Maloof looked up the photographer’s name, he couldn’t find her work anywhere else. In fact, after further searching, Maloof was fairly certain that nobody had ever heard of this woman. Her obituary never even mentioned that she was a photographer. She was a mystery, an unknown artist with world-class talent.

“The Greatest Photographic Discovery”

The images discovered by Maloof were taken by a woman named Vivian Maier. [1]

For nearly 40 years, Maier worked as a nanny for wealthy families in Chicago and New York. During her many daily errands, excursions with the family children, and trips to other cities around the United States, Maier took nearly 150,000 photos of the people and architecture that surrounded her.

Maier’s work and backstory fascinated Maloof. Eventually, after processing thousands of images, he collected 100 of the best photos and posted them online.

People loved them. Major newspapers called to run stories about Maier’s work and wanted to know how Maloof discovered the images. Filmmakers called and decided to make two documentaries about the story including Finding Viviam Maier. Galleries began to exhibit her work throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia. The uncovering of Vivian Maier’s images has been referred to as the greatest photographic discovery of the 21st century. [2]

The story raises plenty of questions, not just about Maier’s past, but also about our willingness to share our gifts with the world.

Share Your Work

We’ll never know the reasons why Vivian Maier decided to hide her work away in boxes. Maybe she didn’t feel that it was good enough. Maybe she wanted to share it, but didn’t know who to contact. Maybe she simply loved to create and wanted to keep her work private. (The last option seems unlikely as she did make a few attempts to publish her photos.)

Regardless of her reasons, two things are certain. First, the world is a better place because she chose to create something. And second, you shouldn’t wait for someone like John Maloof to share your work with the world.

The story of Vivian Maier is a wonderful reminder that we all carry some brilliance inside of us. But perhaps it is an even better reminder that nobody owes it to you to put your work out into the world. How easily could Maier’s work have been forgotten? How many other brilliant artists, creatives, scientists, and thinkers have their work hidden in boxes or tucked away in attics?

What You Create vs. What You Share

The world can only benefit from what it can see.

Which talents are you keeping tucked away in boxes? Which ideas are you hesitating to share?

We have a responsibility to share our work with the world, to contribute our talents to this little sliver of the universe. Choose to share your brilliance with the world.

Don’t wait for your John Maloof. Start before you feel ready.

Click here to leave a comment.

Sources

About Vivian Maier: History
You can browse some of Vivian Maier’s images at vivianmaier.com.

How to Read More: The Simple System I’m Using to Read 30+ Books Per Year

Warren Buffett, the man commonly referred to as the greatest investor of the 20th century, was standing in front of 165 wide-eyed students from Columbia University.

One of the students raised his hand and asked Buffett for his thoughts on the best way to prepare for an investing career. After thinking for a moment, Buffett pulled out a stack of papers and trade reports he had brought with him and said, “Read 500 pages like this every day. That’s how knowledge works. It builds up, like compound interest. All of you can do it, but I guarantee not many of you will do it.” [1]

Buffett estimates that 80 percent of his working hours are spent reading or thinking. It’s enough to make you ask, “Am I reading enough books?”

When I asked myself that question recently, I realized that there were some simple reasons I wasn’t reading as much as I would like to, and I developed a reasonable system that is helping me read more than 30 books per year.

Let me explain…

How to Read More Books

If you know how to read, then reading books is relatively easy. You simply have to make time to read. Easier said than done, of course.

When I looked at my own reading habits, I realized that my reading habits were mostly reactive, not proactive. If an interesting link flashed across my screen on Facebook or Twitter, then I would read it as a reaction. I wasn’t proactively making time to read books each day. I was simply reading interesting ideas that were pushed in front of me.

As a result, most of my reading was done online. Now, there are plenty of excellent articles on the web, but generally speaking, the quality of good books is better. Books typically have better writing (more tightly edited) and higher quality information (better fact-checking and more extensive research). From a learning perspective, it’s probably a better use of my time to read books than to read online content.

So, I had to figure out a strategy that would allow me to read more books without letting typical distractions get in the way.

How do you that?

20 Pages Per Day

Here’s the only pattern I’ve been able to stick with consistently:

Read 20 pages to start the day.

I usually wake up, drink a glass of water, write down 3 things I’m grateful for, and read 20 pages of a book. For the last 10 weeks, I have followed this new habit. As of today, I’m 100 pages into my 7th book. At that pace (7 books per 10 weeks) I’ll read about 36 books in the next year. Not bad.

Here’s why I think this pattern works: 20 pages is small enough that it’s not intimidating. Most people can finish reading 20 pages within 30 minutes. And if you do it first thing in the morning, then the urgencies of the day don’t get in the way.

Finally, 20 pages seems small but adds up fast. It’s a great average speed.

If time allows, I’ll read at other times as well. After the research I did for my article on how to get better sleep, I have added reading to my “prepare for bed” routine as well. But regardless of what happens during the rest of the day, I still get my 20 pages in each morning.

The First Hour

How do you spend the first hour of your day?

Most people spend it getting dressed, getting ready, and rushing out the door. What if that time was spent making yourself a better person? What if you woke up an hour before you needed to each day and worked on yourself? How much better would you be at work, in your relationships, and as a person?

That’s essentially what this reading strategy is asking you to do. Before you move on to the normal bustle of the day, invest in yourself. Before your life turns into a whirlwind of activity, read a book that will make you better. As with most habits that can greatly impact your life, this will never feel urgent, but it is important.

20 pages per day. That’s all you need.

Click here to leave a comment.

Sources:

Investors earn handsome paychecks by handling Buffett’s business by Steve Jordon, Omaha World-Herald

How to Get Better Sleep: The Beginner’s Guide to Overcoming Sleep Deprivation

On February 13, 1972, Michel Siffre climbed into a cave in southwest Texas. It would be six months before he saw daylight again.

Siffre was a French scientist and a pioneer in chronobiology, which is the study of biological rhythms. The most well-known of these biological rhythms is the circadian rhythm, which controls the human sleep-wake cycle, and Siffre was on a mission to learn how, exactly, it worked.

Siffre’s life in the cave was spartan at best. He lived in a tent that sat on a small wooden platform with a bed, a table, a chair, and a phone that he could use to call his research team above ground. His underground home was equipped with a single lightbulb, which provided a soft glow to the piles of frozen food and 800 gallons of water nearby. There were no clocks or calendars, no way for him to discover what time it was or whether it was day or night. And this was how he lived, alone, for six months.

Within a few days, Siffre’s biological clock began to take over. He would later recall his experiments by writing, “My sleep was perfect! My body chose by itself when to sleep and when to eat. That’s very important. We showed that my sleep-wake cycle was not twenty-four hours, like people have on the surface of the earth, but slightly longer—about twenty-four hours and thirty minutes.” [1] On several occasions, Siffre’s body transitioned to a 48-hour sleep-wake cycle where he would stay awake naturally for 36 hours and then sleep for 12 hours. [2]

Siffre’s work, along with the experiments of a handful of other researchers, helped kickstart a scientific interest in sleep that has resulted in sleep performance centers at major universities like Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania. Given that we spend almost 1/3 of our lives sleeping, it’s hard to believe the topic has only gained a large scientific following in recent years. In this article, I’ll share the science of what sleep is, discuss why many people are sleep deprived, and offer practical tips for mastering your sleep and having more energy.

Let’s get started.

Lack of Sleep: How Much Sleep Do You Need?

How much sleep do you really need? To answer that question, let’s consider an experiment conducted by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and Washington State University.

The researchers began the experiment by gathering 48 healthy men and women who had been averaging seven to eight hours of sleep per night. Then, they split these subjects into four groups. The first group drew the short straw. They had to stay up for 3 days straight without sleeping. The second group slept for 4 hours per night. The third group slept for 6 hours per night. And the fourth group slept for 8 hours per night. In these final three groups — 4, 6, and 8 hours of sleep — the subjects were held to these sleep patterns for two weeks straight. Throughout the experiment the subjects were tested on their physical and mental performance. [3]

Here’s what happened…

The subjects who were allowed a full 8 hours of sleep displayed no cognitive decreases, attention lapses, or motor skill declines during the 14-day study. Meanwhile, the groups who received 4 hours and 6 hours of sleep steadily declined with each passing day. The four-hour group performed worst, but the six-hour group didn’t fare much better. In particular, there were two notable findings.

First, sleep debt is a cumulative issue. In the words of the researchers, sleep debt “has a neurobiological cost which accumulates over time.” After one week, 25 percent of the six-hour group was falling asleep at random times throughout the day. After two weeks, the six-hour group had performance deficits that were the same as if they had stayed up for two days straight. Let me repeat that: if you get 6 hours of sleep per night for two weeks straight, your mental and physical performance declines to the same level as if you had stayed awake for 48 hours straight. [4]

Second, participants didn’t notice their own performance declines. When participants graded themselves, they believed that their performance declined for a few days and then tapered off. In reality, they were continuing to get worse with each day. In other words, we are poor judges of our own performance decreases even as we are going through them. In the real world, well-lit office spaces, social conversations, caffeine, and a variety of other factors can make you feel fully awake even though your actual performance is sub-optimal. You might think that your performance is staying the same even on low amounts of sleep, but it’s not. And even if you are happy with your sleep-deprived performance levels, you’re not performing optimally.

The Cost of Sleep Deprivation

The irony of it all is that many of us are suffering from sleep deprivation so that we can work more, but the drop in performance ruins any potential benefits of working additional hours.

In the United States alone, studies have estimated that sleep deprivation is costing businesses over $100 BILLION each year in lost efficiency and performance. [5] As Gregory Belenky, Director of the Sleep and Performance Research Center at Washington State University, puts it: “Unless you’re doing work that doesn’t require much thought, you are trading time awake at the expense of performance.”

And this brings us to the important question: At what point does sleep debt start accumulating? When do performance declines start adding up? According to a wide range of studies, the tipping point is usually around the 7 or 7.5 hour mark. Generally speaking, experts agree that 95 percent of adults need to sleep 7 to 9 hours each night to function optimally. [6]

Here’s another way to say it: 95 percent of adults who get less than 7 hours of sleep on a routine basis will experience decreased mental and physical performance. According to Harvard Medical School, “The average length of time Americans spend sleeping has dropped from about nine hours a night in 1910 to about seven hours today.” And according to Dr. Lawrence Epstein at Harvard Medical School, 20 percent of Americans (1 in 5) get less than six hours of sleep per night.

Most adults should be aiming for eight hours per night. Children, teenagers, and older adults typically need even more.

How Sleep Works: The Sleep-Wake Cycle

The quality of your sleep is determined by a process called the sleep-wake cycle.

There are two important parts of the sleep-wake cycle:

Slow wave sleep (also known as deep sleep)
REM sleep (REM stands for Rapid Eye Movement)

During slow wave sleep the body relaxes, breathing becomes more regular, blood pressure falls, and the brain becomes less responsive to external stimuli, which makes it more difficult to wake up. This phase is critical for renewal and repair of the body. During slow wave sleep, the pituitary gland releases growth hormone, which stimulates tissue growth and muscle repair. Researchers also believe that the body’s immune system is repaired during this stage. Slow wave sleep is particularly critical is you’re an athlete. You’ll often hear about professional athletes like Roger Federer or LeBron James sleeping 11 or 12 hours per night. [7]

As one example of the impact of sleep on physical performance, consider a study researchers conducted on the Stanford basketball players. During this study, the players slept for at least ten hours per night (compared to their typical eight hours). During five weeks of extended sleep, the researchers measured the basketball players accuracy and speed compared to their previous levels. Free throw shooting percentage increased by 9 percent. Three point shooting percentage increased by 9.2 percent. And the players were 0.6 seconds faster when sprinting 80 meters. If you place heavy physical demands on your body, slow wave sleep is what helps you recover. [8]

REM sleep is to the mind what slow wave sleep is to the body. The brain is relatively quiet during most sleep phases, but during REM your brain comes to life. REM sleep is when your brain dreams and re-organizes information. During this phase your brain clears out irrelevant information, boosts your memory by connecting the experiences of the last 24 hours to your previous experiences, and facilitates learning and neural growth. Your body temperature rises, your blood pressure increases, and your heart rate speeds up. Despite all of this activity, your body hardly moves. Typically, the REM phase occurs in short bursts about 3 to 5 times per night.

Without the slow wave sleep and REM sleep phases, the body literally starts to die. If you starve yourself of sleep, you can’t recover physically, your immune system weakens, and your brain becomes foggy. Or, as the researchers put it, sleep deprived individuals experience increased risk of viral infections, weight gain, diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, mental illness, and mortality.

To summarize: slow wave sleep helps you recover physically while REM sleep helps you recover mentally. The amount of time you spend in these phases tends to decrease with age, which means the quality of your sleep and your body’s ability to recover also decrease with age.

Age-Related Sleep Changes

According to Harvard Medical School researchers, “As people age, it takes longer to fall asleep, a phenomenon called increased sleep latency. And sleep efficiency–the percentage of time spent asleep while in bed–decreases as well.”

Based on my calculations of the above data, the average 80-year-old gets a whopping 62 percent less slow wave sleep than the average 20-year-old (20 percent of the average sleep cycle versus 7.5 percent). There are many factors that impact the aging of body tissues and cells, but it stands to reason that if your body gets less slow wave sleep to restore itself each night, then the aging process will accelerate as a result.

In other words, it seems reasonable to say that getting good sleep is one of your best defenses against aging quickly.

How to Recover When You Don’t Get Enough Sleep

At any age, most adults need seven and a half to eight hours of sleep to function at their best. Since older people often have trouble attaining this much sleep at night, they frequently supplement nighttime sleep with daytime naps. This can be a successful strategy for accumulating sufficient total sleep over a 24-hour period. However, if you find that you need a nap, it’s best to take one midday nap, rather than several brief ones scattered throughout the day and evening.”

— Harvard Medical School [9]

As it turns out, the body is incredibly adept at making up for a short-term lack of sleep. In fact, even if you got a brutal 2 or 4 hours of sleep last night, your body can usually recover fully if you get a solid 9 or 10 hours of sleep tonight. Your body will simply spend more time in REM and slow wave sleep cycles the second night to make up for the first. In other words, the two main sleep cycles are largely influenced by the amount and type of sleep you had during the previous night.

There is no need to worry about optimizing how much REM or slow wave sleep you get. Your body is smarter than you are and because it makes adjustments based on previous sleep cycles, you can’t really force yourself to get more REM sleep, for example, during a particular sleep session. All you can do is make sure you get enough sleep and then let your body do the rest. This is particularly important as you age because the percentage of time spent in REM and slow wave sleep decreases as you get older. As an example, a 60-year-old may need to sleep for 10 hours to get the same about of REM sleep that a 20-year-old can get in 7 hours. To put it simply: there is no substitute for sleeping.

There is a limit on this recovery process, of course. Your body will do the best it can, but it will never be able to turn a deficit into a surplus. If you want to recover from a night of little sleep, you need to follow it with more sleep than usual.

The Circadian Rhythm

What is your sleep-wake cycle dictated by?

Answer: the circadian rhythm. The circadian rhythm is a biological cycle of different processes that happen over a time span of about 24 hours.

Here are some key points in the typical 24-hour cycle:

6 A.M. Cortisol levels increase to wake your brain and body
7 A.M. Melatonin production stops
9 A.M. Sex hormone production peaks
10 A.M. Mental alertness levels peak
2:30 P.M. Best motor coordination
3:30 P.M. Fastest reaction time
5 P.M. Greatest cardiovascular efficiency and muscle strength
7 P.M. Highest blood pressure and body temperature
9 P.M. Melatonin production begins to prepare the body for sleep
10 P.M. Bowel movements suppressed as the body quiets down
2 A.M. Deepest sleep
4 A.M. Lowest body temperature

Obviously, these times are not exact and merely display the general pattern of the circadian rhythm. The exact times of your circadian rhythm will vary based on daylight, your habits, and other factors.

The circadian rhythm is impacted by three main factors: light, time, and melatonin.

Light. Light probably the most significant pace setter of the circadian rhythm. Staring into a bright light for 30 minutes or so can often reset your circadian rhythm regardless of what time of day it is. More commonly, the rising of the sun and light striking your eyes triggers the transition to a new cycle.

Time. The time of day, your daily schedule, and the order in which you perform tasks can all impact your sleep-wake cycle.

Melatonin. This is the hormone that causes drowsiness and controls body temperature. Melatonin is produced in a predictable daily rhythm, increasing after dark and decreasing before dawn. Researchers believe that the melatonin production cycle help keep the sleep-wake cycle on track.

How to Sleep Better

Now that we understand how sleep works, let’s talk about some practical strategies for getting better sleep.

Avoid caffeine. If you’re having trouble falling asleep, eliminating caffeine from your diet is a quick win. If you can’t go without your morning cup of coffee, then a good rule of thumb to keep in mind is “No coffee after noon.” This gives caffeine enough time to wear off before bed time.

Stop smoking or chewing tobacco. Tobacco use has been linked to a long line of health issues and poor sleep is another one on the list. I don’t have any personal experience with tobacco use, but I have heard from friends who have quit successfully that Allen Carr’s Easy Way to Stop Smoking book is the best resource on the topic.

Use the bedroom for sleep and sex only. Is your bedroom designed to promote good sleep? The ideal sleeping environment is dark, cool, and quiet. Don’t make your bedroom a multi-purpose room. Eliminate TVs, laptops, electronics, and clutter. These are simple ways to improve the choice architecture of your bedroom, so that sleep is easier and distraction is harder. When you go to the bedroom, go there to sleep.

Natural Sleep Aids

Exercise. There are too many benefits to exercise to list them all here. When it comes to sleep, exercise will make it easier for your brain and body to power down at night. Furthermore, obesity can wreck havoc on your sleep patterns. The role of exercise only becomes more important with age. Fit middle-aged adults sleep significantly better than their overweight peers. One caveat: avoid exercising two to three hours before bedtime as the mental and physical stimulation can leave your nervous system feeling wired and make it difficult to calm down at night.

Temperature. Most people sleep best in a cool room. The ideal range is usually between 65 to 70 degrees Fahrenheit (18 to 21 degrees Celsius).

Sound. A quiet space is key for good sleep. If peace and quiet is hard to come by, try controlling the bedroom noise by creating “white noise” with a fan. Or, use ear plugs (here’s a good pair).

Alcohol. This one is a slippery slope. It is true that having a drink before bed — a “night cap” — often does help people fall asleep. However, while it makes it easier to fall asleep, it actually reduces the quality of your sleep and delays the REM cycle. So you fall asleep faster, but it’s possible that you’ll wake up without feeling rested. It’s probably best to improve your sleep through other methods before resorting to alcohol to do the job.

How to Go to Sleep

Stick to a regular schedule. The body loves ritual. The entire circadian rhythm we laid out earlier is one big, daily routine. Go to bed and wake up around the same time each day.

Develop a “power down” ritual before bed. The light from computer screens, televisions, and phones can hinder the production of melatonin, which means your body isn’t preparing the hormones it needs to enter the sleep phase. Specifically, it is the blue wavelength of light that seems to decrease melatonin production. Developing a “power down” routine where you shut off all electronics an hour or two before sleep can be a big help. Additionally, working late at night can keep your mind racing and your stress levels high, which also prevents the body from calming down for sleep. Turn off the screens and read a book instead. It’s the perfect way to learn something useful and power down before bed. (Another option is to download an app called f.lux, which reduces the brightness of your screen closer to bedtime.)

Use relaxation techniques. Researchers believe that at least 50 percent of insomnia cases are emotion or stress related. Find outlets to reduce your stress and you’ll often find that better sleep comes as a result. Proven methods include daily journaling, deep breathing exercises, meditation, exercise, and keeping a gratitude journal (write down something you are thankful for each day).

Use strategic naps. Generally speaking, one nap in the early afternoon is the best way to adding napping to your sleep cycle. This is particularly useful if you aren’t getting enough sleep each night as your body may be able to make up the deficit during your nap.

How to Have More Energy in the Morning

The best way to have more energy is to get enough sleep, but you can also…

Drink a large glass of water in the morning. Your body just went 6 to 8 hours without any liquid. If you are feeling lethargic and groggy in the morning, you may often be slightly dehydrated. The first thing I do when I wake up is drink a large, cold glass of water.

Start the day in the sunlight. Sunshine is the new coffee. Getting sunlight in your morning routine is critical for establishing your circadian rhythm and waking your brain and body for the day. This is why, in the words of my friend Ben Greenfield, “You may find you need none or very little coffee in the summer or in times of high sun exposure, but you’re a complete monster if you don’t get your morning cup of coffee in the grey winter months.” [10]

Final Thoughts on Sleep

Cumulative sleep debt is robbing companies of billions of dollars in revenue. It’s robbing individuals of shaper mental performance. It’s preventing athletes from performing at their best. And it’s a barrier between you and optimal performance.

The answer is simple, but remarkably underrated in our productivity-obsessed culture: get more sleep.

The ideas in this article offer a variety approaches on how to get better sleep. If you’re looking for more practical strategies on how to create better sleep habits (or better habits in general), then read my free 46-page guide called Transform Your Habits or browse my other articles on behavior change and habit formation here.

You owe it to yourself to develop better sleep habits. Your body and mind will thank you for it.

Sources:

Caveman: An Interview with Michel Siffre
Siffre, Michel. “Six Months Alone in a Cave,” National Geographic (March 1975), 426-435.
The cumulative cost of additional wakefulness
How Little Sleep Can You Get Away With?
Functional and Economic Impact of Sleep Loss and Sleep-Related Disorders
The remaining 5 percent are due to genetic variations that allow them to perform optimally on less sleep. Obviously, it is unlikely that you or I have been dealt such a favorable genetic hand.
Don’t you find it interesting that many of the best athletes in the world sleep at least 10 hours per night? Wouldn’t you assume that if anyone had access to the latest biohacking technology and advanced sleeping tactics, it would be the world’s greatest athletes? If there was any group of people who could afford the research and money to purchase the best ways to hack their sleep and get more done in less time, it would be this group. They could use this time for increased training, additional practice, and so on. And yet, sleeping more is what provides them greater value. I mention this because it can be easy for us to look for a quick fix, a “biohack” that allows us to somehow master the puzzle of sleep and get more done. But when you look at the world’s greatest performers you see that the answer is very simple: sleep more.

The Effects of Sleep Extension on the Athletic Performance of Collegiate Basketball Players
Improving Sleep: A guide to a good night’s rest, a Harvard Medical School publication
The Last Resource You’ll Ever Need To Get Better Sleep, Eliminate Insomnia, Beat Jet Lag and Master The Nap by Ben Greenfield

THANKS to Sam Sager for his tireless help researching this article and to Scott Britton for his slideshow on sleep strategies.

How to Be Motivated Every Day: Lessons Learned from Twyla Tharp

Twyla Tharp was born in Indiana and was named after the local “Pig Princess” at the Annual Muncie Fair, who went by Twila.

It wasn’t the prettiest of starts, but Tharp turned it into something beautiful.

She is widely regarded as one of the greatest dancers and choreographers of the modern era. She has toured across the globe performing her original work. She is credited with choreographing the first crossover ballet and she has choreographed dances for the Paris Opera Ballet, The Royal Ballet, New York City Ballet, Boston Ballet, and many others. Her work has appeared on Broadway, on television, and in films. In 1992, she was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship, often called the “Genius Grant”, for her creative work.

To put it simply: Twyla Tharp is prolific. The question is, how does she do it?

The Power of Ritual

In her best-selling book, The Creative Habit, Tharp discusses one of the secrets of her success:

I begin each day of my life with a ritual; I wake up at 5:30 A.M., put on my workout clothes, my leg warmers, my sweatshirts, and my hat. I walk outside my Manhattan home, hail a taxi, and tell the driver to take me to the Pumping Iron gym at 91st street and First Avenue, where I workout for two hours. The ritual is not the stretching and weight training I put my body through each morning at the gym; the ritual is the cab. The moment I tell the driver where to go I have completed the ritual.

It’s a simple act, but doing it the same way each morning habitualizes it — makes it repeatable, easy to do. It reduces the chance that I would skip it or do it differently. It is one more item in my arsenal of routines, and one less thing to think about.

Let’s talk about what makes Tharp’s morning ritual so important and how we can use it to master our own habits.

The Surprising Thing About Motivation

If you have trouble sticking to good habits or fall victim to bad ones, then it can be easy to assume that you simply need to learn how to get motivated or that you don’t understand how willpower works.

But here is the surprising thing about motivation: it often comes after starting a new behavior, not before. Getting started is a form of active inspiration that naturally produces momentum.

You have probably experienced this phenomenon before. For example, going for a run may seem overwhelming or exhausting just to think about before you begin, but if you can muster up the energy to start jogging, you’ll often find that you become more motivated to finish as you go. In other words, it’s easier to finish the run than it was to start it in the first place.

This is basically Newton’s First Law applied to habit formation: objects in motion tend to stay in motion. And that means getting started is the hardest part.

I often find this to be true with my articles. Once I begin writing, it’s much easier for me to power through and finish. However, if I’m staring at a blank page, it can seem overwhelming and taxing to take the first step.

And this, my friends, is where Twyla Tharp’s morning ritual comes back into the picture.

Rituals Are an On Ramp for Your Behavior

The power of a ritual, or what I like to call a pre-game routine, is that it provides a mindless way to initiate your behavior. It makes starting your habits easier and that means following through on a consistent basis is easier.

Habits researchers agree. Benjamin Gardner, a researcher in the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at University College London recently published a paper in the Health Psychology Review that covered how we can use habits to initiate longer, more complex routines:

A ‘habitual’ bicycle commuter, for example, may automatically opt to use a bicycle rather than alternative transport (so automatically enacting the first behaviour in a superordinate ‘bicycle commuting’ sequence, such as putting on a cycle helmet), but negotiating the journey may require higher-level cognitive input.

In other words, getting started with a simple ritual like putting on a helmet or checking the air in the bike tires makes it easier to follow through on the bigger behavior (making the commute). If you focus on the ritual, the next step follows more automatically.

Twyla Tharp’s morning routine is a perfect example of this idea in practice. Naturally, there are going to be days when she doesn’t feel like getting out of bed and exercising. There are bound to be times when the thought of starting the day with a two-hour workout seems exhausting.

But her ritual of waking up and calling the taxi takes the emotion, motivation, and decision-making out of the process. Her brain doesn’t need to waste any energy deciding what to do next. She doesn’t have a debate with herself about what the first step should be. She simply follows the same pattern that she always does. And once the pattern is in motion, the rest of the sequence follows more easily.

The key to any good ritual is that it removes the need to make a decision: What should I do first? When should I do this? How should I do this? Most people never get moving because they can’t decide how to get started. Having a ritual takes that burden off your shoulders.

The Idea in Practice

Here are some other examples of how you can apply ritual and routine to your habits and behaviors:

Exercise more consistently: Use the same warm up routine in the gym
Become more creative: Follow a creative ritual before you start writing or painting or singing
Start each day stress free: Create a five-minute morning meditation ritual
Sleep better: Follow a “power down” routine before bed

Whatever it is, make it your own. Use your ritual as an on-ramp for the bigger behavior and habits you want to build into your life. When you master the ability to mindlessly initiate the tasks that are important to you, it’s not necessary to rely on motivation and willpower to make them happen.

Where can you use a ritual or routine in your life? What behaviors do you want to do more consistently and automatically?

Click here to leave a comment.

If You Stopped Relying on Motivation and Tried This Instead Would You Be More Consistent?

Twyla Tharp was born in Indiana and was named after the local “Pig Princess” at the Annual Muncie Fair, who went by Twila.

It wasn’t the prettiest of starts, but Tharp turned it into something beautiful.

She is widely regarded as one of the greatest dancers and choreographers of the modern era. She has toured across the globe performing her original work. She is credited with choreographing the first crossover ballet and she has choreographed dances for the Paris Opera Ballet, The Royal Ballet, New York City Ballet, Boston Ballet, and many others. Her work has appeared on Broadway, on television, and in films. In 1992, she was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship, often called the “Genius Grant”, for her creative work.

To put it simply: Twyla Tharp is prolific. The question is, how does she do it?

The Power of Ritual

In her best-selling book, The Creative Habit, Tharp discusses one of the secrets of her success:

I begin each day of my life with a ritual; I wake up at 5:30 A.M., put on my workout clothes, my leg warmers, my sweatshirts, and my hat. I walk outside my Manhattan home, hail a taxi, and tell the driver to take me to the Pumping Iron gym at 91st street and First Avenue, where I workout for two hours. The ritual is not the stretching and weight training I put my body through each morning at the gym; the ritual is the cab. The moment I tell the driver where to go I have completed the ritual.

It’s a simple act, but doing it the same way each morning habitualizes it — makes it repeatable, easy to do. It reduces the chance that I would skip it or do it differently. It is one more item in my arsenal of routines, and one less thing to think about.

Let’s talk about what makes Tharp’s morning ritual so important and how we can use it to master our own habits.

The Surprising Thing About Motivation

If you have trouble sticking to good habits or fall victim to bad ones, then it can be easy to assume that you simply need to learn how to get motivated or that you don’t understand how willpower works.

But here is the surprising thing about motivation: it often comes after starting a new behavior, not before. Getting started is a form of active inspiration that naturally produces momentum.

You have probably experienced this phenomenon before. For example, going for a run may seem overwhelming or exhausting just to think about before you begin, but if you can muster up the energy to start jogging, you’ll often find that you become more motivated to finish as you go. In other words, it’s easier to finish the run than it was to start it in the first place.

This is basically Newton’s First Law applied to habit formation: objects in motion tend to stay in motion. And that means getting started is the hardest part.

I often find this to be true with my articles. Once I begin writing, it’s much easier for me to power through and finish. However, if I’m staring at a blank page, it can seem overwhelming and taxing to take the first step.

And this, my friends, is where Twyla Tharp’s morning ritual comes back into the picture.

Rituals Are an On Ramp for Your Behavior

The power of a ritual, or what I like to call a pre-game routine, is that it provides a mindless way to initiate your behavior. It makes starting your habits easier and that means following through on a consistent basis is easier.

Habits researchers agree. Benjamin Gardner, a researcher in the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at University College London recently published a paper in the Health Psychology Review that covered how we can use habits to initiate longer, more complex routines:

A ‘habitual’ bicycle commuter, for example, may automatically opt to use a bicycle rather than alternative transport (so automatically enacting the first behaviour in a superordinate ‘bicycle commuting’ sequence, such as putting on a cycle helmet), but negotiating the journey may require higher-level cognitive input.

In other words, getting started with a simple ritual like putting on a helmet or checking the air in the bike tires makes it easier to follow through on the bigger behavior (making the commute). If you focus on the ritual, the next step follows more automatically.

Twyla Tharp’s morning routine is a perfect example of this idea in practice. Naturally, there are going to be days when she doesn’t feel like getting out of bed and exercising. There are bound to be times when the thought of starting the day with a two-hour workout seems exhausting.

But her ritual of waking up and calling the taxi takes the emotion, motivation, and decision-making out of the process. Her brain doesn’t need to waste any energy deciding what to do next. She doesn’t have a debate with herself about what the first step should be. She simply follows the same pattern that she always does. And once the pattern is in motion, the rest of the sequence follows more easily.

The key to any good ritual is that it removes the need to make a decision: What should I do first? When should I do this? How should I do this? Most people never get moving because they can’t decide how to get started. Having a ritual takes that burden off your shoulders.

The Idea in Practice

Here are some other examples of how you can apply ritual and routine to your habits and behaviors:

Exercise more consistently: Use the same warm up routine in the gym
Become more creative: Follow a creative ritual before you start writing or painting or singing
Start each day stress free: Create a five-minute morning meditation ritual
Sleep better: Follow a “power down” routine before bed

Whatever it is, make it your own. Use your ritual as an on-ramp for the bigger behavior and habits you want to build into your life. When you master the ability to mindlessly initiate the tasks that are important to you, it’s not necessary to rely on motivation and willpower to make them happen.

Where can you use a ritual or routine in your life? What behaviors do you want to do more consistently and automatically?

Click here to leave a comment.