James Clear's Blog, page 22

Masters of Habit: Rituals, Lessons, and Quotes from Marcus Aurelius

Masters of Habit is a series of mini-biographies on the daily rituals and routines of great athletes, artists, and leaders.

Marcus Aurelius was Roman Emperor from 161 to 180. Known as the last of the “Five Good Emperors,” Aurelius was not born into power, but rather was adopted (his biological father died when he was three years old). Historians refer to him as a kind ruler who was incredibly loyal to his duty to serve the Roman Empire. [1]

As a boy, Aurelius was taught by various private tutors and he became particularly interested in philosophy. It is even said that he went so far as to take on the dress and behavior of a philosopher by sleeping on the floor at night. (Which, apparently, made his mother rather unhappy.)



We’ll never know for certain, but the story of his sleeping on the floor gives the impression that Aurelius had a natural curiosity and a desire to be a self-experimenter. If you told him, “Real philosophers sleep on the floor,” he wanted to try it out for himself.

This same thought process is evident in many of his later writings. Aurelius believed that philosophy wasn’t merely something to think about, but that it should also be practiced.

Today, Aurelius is perhaps best known for his collection of essays called Meditations. Although we don’t know many details about Marcus’ day-to-day life, Meditations offers a glimpse into his mind, his habits, and his approach to life. The very act of writing Meditations, which took him at least 10 years, is evidence to his commitment to habit, consistency, and improvement.

Many historians believe that Aurelius practiced writing as a daily habit, regardless of the circumstances. Some of his most famous passages were written from outposts and battlefields as he sought to expand the Roman Empire. It was through these essays that he shared his thoughts on how to balance the conflict of real life with the values of philosophy.

Below, you’ll find a range of quotes from Marcus Aurelius on philosophy, habits, and life.

Quotes from Marcus Aurelius

On fulfilling your duty…

Everything, a horse, a vine, is created for some duty. For what task, then, were you yourself created? A man’s true delight is to do the things he was made for.

On dealing with criticism…

You have power over your mind — not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.

Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.

You don’t have to turn this into something. It doesn’t have to upset you. Things can’t shape our decisions by themselves.

I have often wondered how it is that every man loves himself more than all the rest of men, but yet sets less value on his own opinion of himself than on the opinion of others.

On taking action…

It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.

Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.

On asking for help…

Don’t be ashamed to need help. Like a soldier storming a wall, you have a mission to accomplish. And if you’ve been wounded and you need a comrade to pull you up? So what?

On living a good life…

Your mind will be like its habitual thoughts; for the soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts. Soak it then in such trains of thoughts as, for example: Where life is possible at all, a right life is possible.

When you arise in the morning think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love…

Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.

Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

For more ideas, quotes, and musings from Marcus Aurelius, I highly recommend reading his book, Meditations. As far as we know, it was written mostly for his own self-improvement, so it doesn’t follow a rigid structure of any type. That said, the book is widely regarded as one of the greatest texts on Stoic philosophy and I think any reader would find something useful to take away from it.

Link: Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

 

Notes:

I’m not a historian, but I have tried my best to deliver the facts correctly. (Which can be difficult when you’re talking about someone who lived thousands of years ago.) Much of the information in this article came from Aurelius’ own book, Meditations. Other sources include Stanford University’s Encyclopedia of Philosophy and the European Graduate School.

The Myth of Creative Inspiration: Great Artists Don’t Wait for Motivation (They Do This Instead)

Franz Kafka is considered one of the most creative and influential writers of the 20th century, but he actually spent most of his time working as a lawyer for the Workers Accident Insurance Institute. How did Kafka produce such fantastic creative works while holding down his day job?

By sticking to a strict schedule.

He would go to his job from 8:30 AM to 2:30 PM, eat lunch and then take a long nap until 7:30 PM, exercise and eat dinner with his family in the evening, and then begin writing at 11 PM for a few hours each night before going to bed and doing it all over again.

Kafka is hardly unique in his commitment to a schedule. As Mason Currey notes in his popular book, Daily Rituals: How Artists Work, many of the world’s great artists follow a consistent schedule.

Maya Angelou rents a local hotel room and goes there to write. She arrives at 6:30 AM, writes until 2 PM, and then goes home to do some editing. She never sleeps at the hotel.
Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Chabon writes five nights per week from 10 PM to 3 AM.
Haruki Murakami wakes up at 4 AM, writes for five hours, and then goes for a run.

The work of top creatives isn’t dependent upon motivation or inspiration, but rather it follows a consistent pattern and routine. It’s the mastering of daily habits that leads to creative success, not some mythical spark of genius.

Here’s why…

Daily Routines: The Power of the Schedule

William James, the famous psychologist, is noted for saying that habits and schedules are important because they “free our minds to advance to really interesting fields of action.”

An article in The Guardian agreed by saying, “If you waste resources trying to decide when or where to work, you’ll impede your capacity to do the work.” And there are plenty of research studies on willpower and motivation to back up that statement.

In other words, if you’re serious about creating something compelling, you need to stop waiting for motivation and inspiration to strike you and simply set a schedule for doing work on a consistent basis. Of course, that’s easy to say, but much harder to do in practice.

Here’s one way of thinking about schedules that may help.

Permission to Create Junk

Weightlifting offers a good metaphor for scheduling creative work.

I can’t predict whether or not I’ll set a PR (personal record) before I go to the gym. In fact, there will be many days when I’ll have a below average workout. Eventually, I figured out that those below average days were just part of the process. The only way to actually lift bigger weights was to continually show up every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday — regardless of whether any individual workout was good or bad.

Creative work is no different than training in the gym. You can’t selectively choose your best moments and only work on the days when you have great ideas. The only way to unveil the great ideas inside of you is to go through a volume of work, put in your repetitions, and show up over and over again.

Obviously, doing something below average is never the goal. But you have to give yourself permission to grind through the occasional days of below average work because it’s the price you have to pay to get to excellent work.

If you’re anything like me, you hate creating something that isn’t excellent. It’s easy to start judging your work and convince yourself to not share something, not publish something, and not ship something because “this isn’t good enough yet.”

But the alternative is even worse: if you don’t have a schedule forcing you to deliver, then it’s really easy to avoid doing the work at all. The only way to be consistent enough to make a masterpiece is to give yourself permission to create junk along the way.

The Schedule is the System

During a conversation about writing, my friend Sarah Peck looked at me and said, “A lot of people never get around to writing because they are always wondering when they are going to write next.”

You could say the same thing about working out, starting a business, creating art, and building most habits. The schedule is the system that makes your goals a reality. If you don’t set a schedule for yourself, then your only option is to rely on motivation.

If your workout doesn’t have a time when it usually occurs, then each day you’ll wake up thinking, “I hope I feel motivated to exercise today.”
If your business doesn’t have a system for marketing, then you’ll show up at work crossing your fingers that you’ll find a way to get the word out (in addition to everything else you have to do).
If you don’t have a time block to write every week, then you’ll find yourself saying things like, “I just need to find the willpower to do it.”

Stop waiting for motivation or inspiration to strike you and set a schedule for your habits. This is the difference between professionals and amateurs. Professionals set a schedule and stick to it. Amateurs wait until they feel inspired or motivated.

P.S. For more ideas on how to set schedules and stick to habits for the long-term, read my free 45-page guide: Transform Your Habits.

The Power of Imperfect Starts: How Good Do You Really Need to Be to Get Started?

When you have a goal — whether it’s starting a business or eating healthier or traveling the world — it’s easy to look at someone who is already doing it and then try to reverse engineer their strategy.

In some cases, this is really useful. Learning from the experiences of successful people is a great way to accelerate your own learning curve.

But it’s equally important to remember that the systems, habits, and strategies that successful people are using today are probably not the same ones they were using when they began their journey.

What is optimal for them right now isn’t necessarily needed for you to get started. There is a difference between the two.

Let me explain.

What is Optimal vs. What is Needed

If you set your bar at “amazing,” it’s awfully difficult to start.

—Seth Godin

Learning from others is great and I do it all the time myself.

But comparing your current situation to someone who is already successful can often make you feel like you lack the required resources to get started at all. If you look at their optimal setup, it can be really easy to convince yourself that you need to buy new things or learn new skills or meet new people before you can even take the first step toward your goals.

And usually, that’s not true. Here are some examples.

Traveling the world. Every time I travel, I see so many backpackers who have spent a fortune on gear: rainproof bags, moisture-wicking clothes, special shoes. Now I’m not saying gear is useless. Great gear can make your life much easier on the road, but it’s not required. You don’t need new shoes to start running. You don’t need new cooking bowls to start eating healthy. And you don’t need a new backpack to start traveling. Those things might be optimal, but they are not needed in the beginning.

Starting a business. When you’re an entrepreneur, it’s so easy to get obsessed with optimal. This is especially true at the start. I can remember being convinced that my first website would not succeed without a great logo. After all, every popular website I looked at had a professional logo. I’ve since learned my lesson. Now my “logo” is just my name and this is the most popular website I’ve built.

Eating healthy. Maybe the optimal diet would involve buying beef that is only grass-fed or vegetables that are only organic or some other super-healthy food strategy. But if you’re just trying to make strides in the right direction, why get bogged down in the details? Start small and simply buy another vegetable this week — whether it’s organic or not. There will be plenty of time for optimization later.

Avoiding by Optimizing

Claiming that you need to “learn more” or “get all of your ducks in a row” can often be a crutch that prevents you from moving forward on the stuff that actually matters.

You can complain that your golf game is suffering because you need new clubs, but the truth is you probably just need two years of practice.
You can argue that it’s hard to travel light without the right backpack, but the truth is you could make it work with what you have now.
You can point out how your business mentor is successful because they use XYZ software, but they probably got started without it.

Obsessing about the ultimate strategy or the ultimate diet or the ultimate golf club can be a clever way to prevent yourself from doing hard work.

As regular readers know, I’m all for optimizing and improvement. One percent gains fill me with joy. Tiny habits leave me smitten. Disturbing levels of consistency make my heart flutter. But don’t let visions of what is optimal prevent you from getting started in the first place.

An imperfect start can always be improved, but obsessing over a perfect plan will never take you anywhere on its own.

I Watched an Artist Create Stained Glass And Learned An Important Lesson About Life

Until recently, I had never been inside a stained glass studio. And then, without any planning at all, I found myself inside two different studios over the span of three days. Strange how life works like that.

I assumed that I would see some nicely colored works windows or something similar, but that would be it. Little did I know, I was about to learn a lesson about life.

During a conversation with one of the artists, I was told about a strategy they use to cut glass and immediately realized that this same idea applies to habits, improvement, and almost everything in life.

Here’s what the artist told me…

Lessons Learned from Stained Glass

Stained glass artists create different designs by making cuts on the glass to “score” it and then breaking off the pattern or shape that they want to use in the finished product. (In other words, they make a notch in the glass and then break the pieces apart like you would with a Kit Kat bar.)

The most difficult cut in stained glass is called an inside cut. Basically, it’s a curved line where you throw away the part inside of the curve. The problem with inside cuts is that the edges of the curve tend to chip when the pieces of scored glass are broken apart. The image below shows what I mean.

As the artist talked about inside cuts, he said, “The glass will shatter if you try to cut too much off at once. The best way to do an inside cut is to slice off smaller curves piece-by-piece. In fact, it’s not just the best way to do it, it’s the only way to do it.”

So, you start by slicing a shallow curve and breaking a small piece off. Then you cut a slightly deeper curve and break that off. And so on, until you have your full inside cut. The image below shows the strategy.

By slowly cutting deeper and deeper curves, the artist prevents the glass from chipping and breaking as it changes shape.

Inside Cuts in Everyday Life

Changing your behavior, building new habits, and learning new skills is a lot like making an inside cut on a piece of glass.

If you want, you can try to make a big change and cut the entire piece at once. We convince ourselves that we can do this all the time. We’ll commit to transforming our diet overnight or we get inspired to launch a business in a weekend or we finally get motivated to workout and push ourselves to the brink of exhaustion.

If our life is like the piece of glass, we try to change the entire shape of it all at once.

Why? Because it’s so easy to focus on achievements instead of progress. We tend to get obsessed with our goals rather than focusing on our system.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve made this mistake tons of times myself. I’ll get excited and motivated and jump into a project or chase a goal with everything I have, but pretty soon the pieces begin to break and I have to start over.

Approach Change Like a Stained Glass Artist

The alternative is to approach your goals and dreams like a stained glass artist.

You can choose to make slow, methodical gains. Start with a small, unimpressive cut — something you can easily handle — and do it well. Then, repeat with a slightly bigger step. And again. And again. And again.

This process is like starting with something that is so easy that you can’t say no. And then focusing on improving by one percent each time. And then committing to doing more repetitions.

Of course, change isn’t easy — no matter how you do it. Slow gains are boring. They’re unsexy. Nobody writes news stories about them. But moving forward in a slow and methodical manner doesn’t mean you lack ambition, drive, or vision. The stained glass artist has a very clear vision. He knows exactly what he is working toward.

You and I can do the same. If we keep making small improvements, then pretty soon we will end up with a beautiful masterpiece on our hands instead of a bunch of fragments.

The Power of Less: I Removed Every Inessential Thing From My Website and Here’s What Happened

When I built my first website a little over 3 years ago, I had no idea what I was doing.

Naturally, I figured that looking at what other websites and blogs had on their pages would be a good place to start. I started seeing sites with social media buttons, email popups, advertisements, comments, and all sorts of other things. At first glance, these things seemed important. After all, every other website had them and they appeared to serve a purpose.

But as I continued tweaking my site design, I tested what would happen if I eliminated the unessential pieces. I didn’t run any advertisements. I took down all of the social media buttons. I eliminated the sidebars, the suggested content, and anything else that wasn’t absolutely essential.

As I pulled away each piece, a funny thing happened. People were less distracted. Visitors spent more time reading my articles. More people joined my email list. The simpler things became, the better the results were.

But it’s not just websites. Once my eyes were opened, I noticed impact of simplicity in other areas of life as well.

The Power of Less

When I was a kid, I looked like a string bean. As an athlete, I knew I needed to get stronger and I thought that I needed to devise the ultimate, optimized workout plan.

I spent hours trying to come up with the right combination of exercises and the perfect split routines for each week. When I barely got stronger, I assumed that I was missing an exercise. I figured the answer to gaining muscle and getting stronger was adding something else to the mix.

It took me about 7 years (I’m a slow learner), but eventually I figured out that the answer was the exact opposite: simplicity.

I abandoned the complex workouts, focused on one foundational movement (the back squat), and did just 2 or 3 exercises per workout. I increased my strength more in 4 months than I did in the previous 4 years. Just like with my website, the simpler things became, the better the results were.

From websites to workouts, simplicity can make a big difference. But in both cases, my skills didn’t increase overnight. Instead, I made progress by eliminating the things that were distracting me from the essentials.

It was a commitment to mastering the fundamentals, not the details, that made the difference. I think this principle applies to most things in life.

Eliminate Your Distractions

The simplest way to get better is to eliminate your distractions.

Want your software program to run faster? Delete every line of code that isn’t essential.

Want to get stronger arms? Stop wasting energy on unrelated exercises.

Want more people to read your blog? Stop distracting them with ads, buttons, and widgets.

These choices have nothing to do with gaining new skills. They are simply about eliminating the things that are distracting from the essential. Learning to ignore, reduce, and remove the inessential choices can be just as beneficial as teaching yourself to make better ones.

This principle extends to many “good” uses of time as well. Eliminating bad habits and wasteful resources is like picking the low-hanging fruit. Simplicity becomes harder when you have to choose between two good options. But those choices are just as important. It took me a long time to learn this, but just because you can easily justify spending your time on something doesn’t mean it’s essential to your progress. Decide what is really important to you and eliminate the rest.

Simplifying your options immediately makes you better because it’s so much easier to do the right thing when you’re not surrounded by the extra things. The simplest way to improve is to eliminate your distractions.

Photo Essay: The Blue City of Chefchaouen, Morocco

About once per month, I publish a photo essay that showcases a particular place or theme from my travels.

I often write about the importance of creating things, choosing to be a “maker” and contributing to the world around you (see here, here, and here). Photography is one way for me to put those ideas into practice. I firmly believe that creating and exploring aren’t merely artistic choices, but also healthy life choices. Seeking adventure and creating pictures is a way for me to practice what I preach.

With that said, all of the images below were shot with a Canon 6D and a Canon 40mm f/2.8 lens. This is a new camera and lens setup for me — and I loved them both. I’m planning to use them exclusively going forward.

The images in this photo essay are from Chefchaouen, Morocco. As always, all photos are my own.

Chefchaouen, Morocco Photos

Hidden deep within the Rif Mountains of the Northwest Morocco is a small, quiet city called Chefchaouen. This sleepy mountain village was one of my favorite areas in the entire country.

The men wander the streets in long robes with pointed hoods known as jellabas. Jellabas are usually made from wool and definitely qualify as legit mountain outerwear. Locals wear them in the rain, the wind, the sun — you name it.

The women make handmade Moroccan rugs and carpets using wool, camel hair, cactus fiber, and natural dyes from the surrounding mountains.

The ancient part of Chefchaouen, known as the medina, is covered in all shades of blue paint. You’ll find blue spreading across the streets, the walls, and even inside the homes on nearly every street and alleyway. It’s not hard to figure out why Chefchaouen is often called “The Blue Pearl of Morocco.”

Bright-colored pigments are used to create paints of all shades and locals scoop out whatever color they need from bags and sacks in the shops and squares around town. The blue colors that cover the entire city originally came from these bags of pigment.

Want more? You can browse the full gallery of images from Morocco here.

Strategies I’m Using to Stay Fit While Traveling

I believe that we are meant to live physical lives, which is why I love training, weightlifting, and athletic competition. But, I also believe that we are meant to explore the world around us, which is why I love adventure, photography, and travel.

But balancing these two passions can be a struggle sometimes. Eating healthy and getting to the gym is easier when you’re at home, but harder on the road.

I’m still learning and experimenting with different ideas, but here are some strategies I’ve been using to stay fit while traveling. (Plus, the new approach that I’m taking this year).

1. Do what you can, when you can.

I think the simplest approach is to fit training in whenever you can. When all else fails, you can always resort to this strategy.

Example 1: After 14 hours of flying and a 9-hour time change, I landed in Russia and made it to my hotel late at night. I was exhausted, but decided to do a 10-minute pushup workout before melting into the pillow. It wasn’t much, but it was better than nothing.

Example 2: When I was on the road in the Midwest, I spent 20 minutes doing sprints in the parking lot of an apartment complex. (And a particularly interested inhabitant came out on his balcony and cheered me on.) Again, not much, but I think it was worth it.

You get the idea.

I think the most important part of this strategy is learning to not care what other people think about you. When travel restricts your options, sometimes you have to train in strange places. If you can learn to not care what you look like, then you can always find a way to do some pushups in your hotel room, toss in a set of pullups on a nearby tree branch, or go for a short run in the parking lot.

2. Train with the locals.

It doesn’t always work, but if you have friends or friends-of-friends in the place you are visiting, then this can be a perfect solution. They can take you as a guest to their gym or you can meet up for a training session. As an added bonus, you get to hang out with a friend.

My favorite example of this happened last year in San Francisco. My buddy Scott Dinsmore treated me to a morning kettlebell session under the Golden Gate Bridge. It was a perfect workout and ended up being one of my favorite moments of the trip.

3. Make hard choices.

Last year, I spent a week exploring Italy (photos here) before heading to the fantastic St. Gallen Symposium in Switzerland. By the end of the week, I was itching for some exercise. But I also needed to catch up on sleep and there was a speaker I wanted to hear leading a session at the symposium the next morning.

Something had to give.

I decided to sleep, exercise in the morning, and go to the symposium an hour late. I missed a great speaker, but after the workout and some rest I was in better spirits for the rest of symposium. It was a hard choice, but I don’t regret it at all.

There are constraints and limitations that happen every day of our lives, but they seem to be especially apparent while traveling. Training on the road isn’t magically going to be easy. Your time and options are limited, so sometimes you have to make a hard choice and miss out on something else.

4. Schedule your travel during an “off week” for training.

This is my latest and greatest approach and I’ll be trying it out for the next 12 months. Essentially, I’m scheduling my travel to happen during a planned “off week” in my training. My thought is that if I travel for 6 weeks of the year, but train consistently for the other 46 weeks, then I’ll be able to have the best of both worlds.

Currently I’m training on cycles that are approximately 8 to 10 weeks. After each cycle, I’m planning to take an off week from training that usually lasts 5 to 10 days. During this time, I’m giving myself a free pass on lifting while I spend a few days diving into travel, adventure, and photography.

I realize that many people don’t have this kind of flexibility with their travel plans. In fact, I didn’t have this much flexibility myself until very recently. Creating freedom in my life has been one of the main drivers of my entrepreneurial career and now I’m fortunate enough to have it.

Here’s what this strategy looks like in practice…

My latest training cycle started after Thanksgiving of last year. I trained for nine weeks from the beginning of December through the end of January, and then I spent my off week traveling through Morocco (Photo essay coming soon!).

During this “off week” I did a lot of walking, hiking, and exploring around different cities to take photos, so it was definitely a week of active rest. But, I didn’t touch any weights, do any pushups, or run any sprints. I just walked, and ate, and took thousands of photos. It was a great creative break and I’m hoping that it will be a good physical break as well that sets me up for the next phase of training.

Note: In my 2013 Annual Review, I mentioned that photography was one of the areas where I wanted to improve in 2014. The “8 weeks on, 1 week off” strategy helps me fit more photography into my lifestyle while offering enough consistency in the gym to still make progress. At least, that’s the idea. We’ll see how well it actually works over the course of a year.

The only real answer is the one that works for you.

Obviously, these strategies aren’t the absolute answer. I’ve said many times before that I don’t have it all figured out. I’m just experimenting with ideas and seeing what works for me.

As an entrepreneur, my schedule is more flexible than usual. And as a photographer, my mission when I travel (to capture the essence of a place) is different from what many people have in mind when they travel. In other words, these strategies work for me, but they may not be a perfect fit for your lifestyle or your mission. That’s fine. Take the ideas that work and leave the rest.

But no matter what you do, keep training and keep exploring.

Treat Failure Like a Scientist

I recently had a wonderful conversation with my friend, Beck Tench. During our chat, Beck told me about an interesting shift in thinking that occurred while she worked at a science museum.

During her time there, Beck said that she learned how to treat failure like a scientist.

How does a scientist treat failure? And what can we learn from their approach?

Here’s what Beck taught me…

Treat Failure Like a Scientist

When a scientist runs an experiment, there are all sorts of results that could happen. Some results are positive and some are negative, but all of them are data points. Each result is a piece of data that can ultimately lead to an answer.

And that’s exactly how a scientist treats failure: as another data point.

This is much different than how society often talks about failure. For most of us, failure feels like an indication of who we are as a person.

Failing a test means you’re not smart enough. Failing to get fit means you’re undesirable. Failing in business means you don’t have what it takes. Failing at art means you’re not creative. And so on.

But for the scientist, a negative result is not an indication that they are a bad scientist. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. Proving a hypothesis wrong is often just as useful as proving it right because you learned something along the way.

Your failures are simply data points that can help lead you to the right answer.

Failure is the Cost You Pay to be Right

None of this is to say that you should seek to make mistakes or that failing is fun. Obviously, you’ll try to do things the right way. And failing on something that is important to you is never fun.

But failure will always be part of your growth for one simple reason…

If you’re focused on building a new habit or learning a new skill or mastering a craft of any type, then you’re basically experimenting in one way or another. And if you run enough experiments, then sometimes you’re going to get a negative result.

It happens to every scientist and it will happen to you and me as well. To paraphrase Seth Godin: Failure is simply a cost you have to pay on the way to being right.

Treat failure like a scientist. Your failures are not you. Your successes are not you. They are simply data points that help guide the next experiment.

Thanks again to Beck for inspiring this post!

Rome Wasn’t Built in a Day, But They Were Laying Bricks Every Hour

John Heywood was an English playwright who lived hundreds of years ago.

Today, Heywood is known for his poems, proverbs, and plays. But more than any one work, it’s his phrases that have made him famous. For example, here are some popular sayings that have been attributed to Heywood…

“Out of sight out of mind.”
“Better late than never.”
“The more the merrier.”
“Many hands make light work.”

And there is one phrase from Heywood that is particularly interesting when it comes to building better habits:

“Rome was not built in one day.”

Just Lay a Brick

Typically, people use the phrase “Rome wasn’t built in a day” to remind someone of the time needed to create something great.

And it’s true. It takes time — sometimes years — to master a skill, craft, or habit. And while it’s good to keep perspective on your dreams, I think it’s better to remember the other side of this story:

Rome wasn’t built in a day, but they were laying bricks every hour.

The problem is that it can be really easy to overestimate the importance of building your Roman empire and underestimate the importance of laying another brick.

It’s just another brick. Why worry about it? Much better to think about the dream of Rome. Right?

Actually Rome is just the result, the bricks are the system. The system is greater than the goal. Focusing on your habits is more important than worrying about your outcomes.

Of course, there’s nothing necessarily impressive about laying a brick. It’s not a fantastic amount of work. It’s not a grand feat of strength or stamina or intelligence. Nobody is going to applaud you for it.

But laying a brick every day, year after year? That’s how you build an empire.

You can start small. You can focus on improving 1 percent each day. You can simply put in another rep.

You don’t have to build everything you want today, but you do have to find a way to lay another brick.

10 Simple Ways to Eat Healthy Without Thinking, Backed by Science

Your environment has an incredible ability to shape your behavior.

I have written previously about choice architecture and environment design, both of which are focused on the idea that, “By making small changes to the physical environment around you, it can become much easier to stick to good habits.”

And while the research studies I have shared in those articles are interesting, I thought it might be useful to list some practical ways to apply environment design to your world and make it easier to live a healthy, happy, and adventurous life.

With that in mind, here are 10 simple strategies for designing your environment to eat healthy without thinking and spend more of your time and energy on doing something awesome.

Keep in mind, these ideas are just a start. You can apply these concepts for designing your environment and creating better “choice architecture” to almost any habit or behavior.

How to Eat Healthy Without Noticing

Before we begin, let’s give credit to the researcher behind many of these ideas. Brian Wansink is a professor at Cornell University and he has completed a variety of studies on how your environment shapes your eating decisions. Many of the ideas below come from his popular book, Mindless Eating.

1. Use smaller plates. Bigger plates mean bigger portions. And that means you eat more. According to a study conducted by Wansink and his research team, if you made a simple change and served your dinner on 10-inch plates instead of a 12-inch plate, you would eat 22% less food over the course of the next year.

On a related note, if you’re thinking “I’ll just put less food on my plate” … it’s not that simple. The picture below explains why. When you eat a small portion off of a large plate, your mind feels unsatisfied. Meanwhile, the same portion will feel more filling when eaten off of a small plate. The circles in the image below are the same size, but your brain (and stomach) doesn’t view them that way.

This image shows how small portion sizes can look filling on a small plate, but sparse on a large plate.

2. Make water more readily available. Most of us mindlessly take a swig of soda or a sip of coffee as we do other tasks. Try this instead: buy a large bottle water and set it somewhere close to you throughout your day. You’ll find that if it’s sitting next to you, you’ll often opt for water instead and avoid less healthy drink options naturally.

Note: I love this water bottle because it holds a good amount of water and folds up small enough to fit in a backpack, purse, or pocket. It’s perfect for travel too.

3. Want to drink less alcohol or soda? Use tall, slender glasses instead of short, fat ones.

Take a look at the image below. Is the horizontal or vertical line longer?

Like the lines in this photo, vertical glasses will look bigger than horizontal ones and will therefore naturally help you drink less.

As it turns out, both lines are the same length, but our brain has a tendency to overestimate vertical lines. In other words, taller drinks look bigger to our eyes than round, horizontal mugs do. And because height makes things look bigger than width, you’ll actually drink less from taller glasses. In fact, you will typically drink about 20% less from a tall, slender glass than you would from a short, fat glass. (Hat tip to Darya Pino for originally sharing this image and idea.)

4. Use plates that have a high contrast color with your food. As I mentioned in this article, when the color of your plate matches the color of your food, you naturally serve yourself more because your brain has trouble distinguishing the portion size from the plate. Because of this, dark green and dark blue make great plate colors because they contrast with light foods like pasta and potatoes (which means you’re likely to serve less of them), but don’t contrast very much with leafy greens and vegetables (which means you’re likely to put more of them on your plate).

5. Display healthy foods in a prominent place. For example, you could place a bowl of fruits or nuts near the front door or somewhere else that you pass by before you leave the house. When you’re hungry and in a rush, you are more likely to grab the first thing you see.

6. Wrap unhealthy foods in tin foil. Wrap healthy foods in plastic wrap. The old saying, “out of sight, out of mind” turns out to have some truth to it. Eating isn’t just a physical event, but also an emotional one. Your mind often determines what it wants to eat based on what your eyes see. Thus, if you hide unhealthy foods by wrapping them up or tucking them away in less prominent places, then you are less likely to eat them.

7. Keep healthy foods in larger packages and containers, and unhealthy foods in smaller ones. Big boxes and containers tend to catch your eye more, take up space in your kitchen and pantry, and otherwise get in your way. As a result, you’re more likely to notice them and eat them. Meanwhile, smaller items can hide in your kitchen for months. (Just take a look at what you have lying around right now. It’s probably small cans and containers.)

Bonus tip: if you buy a large box of something unhealthy, you can re-package it into smaller Ziploc bags or containers, which should make it less likely that you’ll binge and eat a lot at once.

8. Serve meals by using the “half plate” rule. You can design your eating environment as well. When you serve yourself dinner, start by making half of your plate fruits or vegetables. Then, fill the rest of the dish based on that constraint.

9. Use the “Outer Ring” strategy to buy healthier foods. The concept is simple: when you go grocery shopping, don’t walk down the aisles. Only shop on the outer perimeter of the store. This is usually where the healthy food lives: fruits, vegetables, lean meats, fish, eggs, and nuts. If you only shop on the outer ring, then you’re more likely to buy healthy foods. And that, of course, means you’re more likely to eat healthy foods when you get home.

10. And for the tenth strategy, let’s apply these concepts to some other areas of life…

Applying Environment Design to the Rest of Your Life

When you really break down each of these strategies, you’ll see that each one is a small tweak that puts more steps between you and the bad behaviors and fewer steps between you and the good behaviors.

For example…

Wrapping unhealthy foods in tin foil adds another step. You have to see the dish, then open it to see what is inside, then decide to eat it. (Rather than just spotting some leftovers in plastic wrap and grabbing them.)
Using small plates adds another step between you and eating more. If you want more, you have to go back for seconds and fill up again.

You can take this same approach to almost anything in life. If you want to make a bad behavior more difficult, then increase the number of steps between you and the behavior.

Meanwhile, if you want to make a good behavior easier, reduce the number of steps between you and the behavior. For example, if you want to make it easier to go for a run then lay out your shoes and running gear the night before you exercise. One less step between you and your workout.