Mini HabitsSmaller Habits, Bigger

Results

by Stephen Guise

www.deepexistence.comPrimary blog – focusing, habits, small

steps, etc.

www.minihabits.comSupplemental book information

Copyright and DisclaimersMini Habits™ by Stephen Guise

Copyright 2013, All Rights Reserved

Legal Disclaimer: The information contained in this book isthe opinion of the author and is based onthe author's personal experiences andobservations. The author does notassume any liability whatsoever for theuse of or inability to use any or allinformation contained in this book, andaccepts no responsibility for any loss ordamages of any kind that may beincurred by the reader as a result ofactions arising from the use of

information found in this book. Use thisinformation at your own risk.

The author reserves the right to make anychanges he deems necessary to futureversions of the publication to ensure itsaccuracy.

PrefaceI had experimented with personaldevelopment strategies for a decade.When I accidentally started my first minihabit—and the changes Imade were actually lasting—I realizedthe prior strategies I relied upon werecomplete failures. When somethingworks, that which doesn't work isexposed. The science in MiniHabits exposes the predictablyinconsistent results of most popularpersonal growth strategies, and revealswhy mini habits create remarkableconsistency.

A mini habit is a very small positive

behavior that you force yourself todo every day; its "too small to fail"nature makes it weightless,deceptively powerful, and a superiorhabit-building strategy.

This strategy will better equip you tochange your life than 99% of thepeople you see walking around on thisglobe. People so often think that they arethe reason they can't achieve lastingchange; but the problem isn't with them—it's with theirstrategy. You can achieve great thingswithout the guilt, intimidation, andrepeated failure associated withstrategies like "getting motivated,"resolutions, or even "just doing it.” To

make changes last, you need to stopfighting against your brain. When youstart playing by your brain's rules—as mini habits show you how to do—lasting change isn't so hard.

Mini Habit Mastery VideoCourse DiscountThis book has been flying off the digitalshelves ever since it was releasedbecause the content is changing lives. Toexpand the reach of Mini Habits andcater to varied learning styles, I lockedmyself in a room for seven months andcreated the Mini Habit Mastery VideoCourse.

This groundbreaking habit coursecontains 3.5+ hours of HD video, andjust like this book, it is paradigm-shifting information in a highly-entertaining wrapper.

As a Mini Habits’ reader, you areeligible for a $35 discount on the course.Visit Mini Habit Mastery on Udemy topreview the course and enter the coupon“minibook” to save $35 instantly (orclick on this link to have the discountalready applied).

How This Book Is StructuredThere are seven major parts in MiniHabits. The end goal of this book is tohelp you permanently add healthy,habitual behaviors to your life. Thefirst three parts discuss habit-building,the brain, willpower, motivation, andhow they relate to one another. The nexttwo parts discuss logical and scientificconclusions about how to best utilizethis information. The last three partsshow you how to apply it. Here are theseven parts in greater detail:

1. Introduction To Mini Habits

Here, you'll find out what a mini habit is.This part includes the story of how I firstmade one push-up a full workout (whichbecame a mini-phenomenon called “TheOne Push-up Challenge”). We'll alsoexplore why habits are so critical toactively develop.

What it establishes: what a mini habit is,the importance of habits, and how Istumbled upon my first mini habit.

2. How Your Brain Works

In part two, we're going to take a look atthe human brain. Understanding the braincan help tremendously in new habitformation, because you can employsuperior strategies with this knowledge.

We'll learn about the active and passive(i.e. conscious and subconscious) partsof the brain, and how they work togetherto shape our daily behavior.

What it establishes: the inner workingsof the human brain as it relates tobehavior change and creating newhabits.

3. Willpower Vs. Motivation

We have two strategies for taking action—either get motivated so that we wantto complete the task or force the issue byusing willpower. Is one better than theother? Do we use both? Science revealsthe winner and suggests the single bestway to apply it.

What it establishes: why it's best to usewillpower exclusively (with minihabits) and ignore motivation altogether.

4. The Strategy of Mini Habits

The first three parts laid the foundationfor this concept of tiny, daily actions; inthe next two parts, we’ll discuss whythat is the case and how it should work.Mini habits are most effective with theproper mindset, and this part gets youinto that mindset.

What it establishes: the connectionbetween the Mini Habits strategy andeverything we've learned about habitchange to this point.

5. The Mini Habits Difference

This part delves into the advantages ofthe Mini Habits strategy’s differencesand how it can work for you when othershaven’t.

What it establishes: all that makes minihabits uniquely effective.

6. Mini Habits – Eight Steps To BigChange

These eight steps will show you how tochoose your habits, plan your journey,and take your first small steps forward.Each step is broken down into detail,explaining exactly why it's necessary,different strategies to employ, and how

to best execute.

What it establishes: how to apply minihabits to your life, from the “I want tocreate a new habit” stage to success.

7. Eight Mini Habit Rules

This last part covers the eight rules ofthe Mini Habits strategy. These ruleswill keep you on track and ensure youmaximize your potential and results.

What it establishes: the rules of minihabits that will help you get great resultswhile avoiding habit-breaking mistakes.

***

Are you ready to discover how smaller

habits lead to bigger results? I sure hopeso, because I'm excited to show you.Let's go!

Table Of Contents

Part 1

Introduction To Mini HabitsHow It Began: The One Push-up ChallengeFor Good Habits OnlyA Brief Synopsis Of Mini HabitsAbout Habits And The Brain

Part 2

How Your Brain WorksSlow-Changing, Stable BrainsA Stupid Repeater & A Smart ManagerThe Prefrontal CortexThe Basal Ganglia

Part 3

Motivation Vs. WillpowerThe Many Problems With “Getting Motivated”Why Willpower Beats MotivationHow Willpower Works

Part 4

The Strategy Of Mini Habits

Using Willpower The Mini Habits WayHow Mini Habits Expand Your Comfort ZoneThe Two Moments Of ResistanceMini Habits In The Moment

Part 5

The Mini Habits Difference

Mini Habits Can Compete With Your Existing HabitsSmall Steps & Willpower Are A Winning TeamOther Methods Will Tell You It's Ok To Let Up Too SoonMini Habits Increase Your Self-efficacyMini Habits Give You AutonomyMini Habits Marry The Abstract & ConcreteMini Habits Destroy Fear, Doubt, Intimidation, & HesitationMini Habits Create Insane Bonuses Of Increased Mindfulness & Willpower

Part 6

Mini Habits – Eight Small Steps To Big Change

Step 1: Choose Your Mini Habits & Habit Plan

Step 2: Use The Why Drill On Each Mini Habit Step 3: Define Your Habit CuesStep 4: Create Your Reward PlanStep 5: Write Everything DownStep 6: Think SmallStep 7: Meet Your Schedule & Drop High ExpectationsStep 8: Watch For Signs Of Habit

Part 7

Eight Mini Habit Rules1. Never, Ever Cheat2. Be Happy With All Progress3. Reward Yourself Often, Especially After A Mini Habit4. Stay Level-headed5. If You Feel Strong Resistance, Back Off & Go Smaller6. Remind Yourself How Easy This Is

7. Never Think A Step Is Too Small8. Put Extra Energy and Ambition Toward Bonus Reps, Not A Bigger Requirement

Final WordsAn Optional ModificationApply This Strategy ElsewhereWant More?

Introduction To Mini Habits

“The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.”

— Lao Tzu

Let's begin your first mini habit.

Read at least two pages of this bookevery day until you finish it. You may

read more than that, but never less. Itwon’t require much time or effort to readtwo pages, so there are no excuses. Nowyou can experience what it's like to havea mini habit as you read about minihabits.

Touch your nose right now. I'm serious.I’ll explain later. Ok, now think aboutwhat the following truths mean for yourlife:

1. Big intentions are worthless if theydon't bring results. For example, I cansay that I will exercise for two hoursevery day, but if I never do it, the size ofthe intention doesn't matter. In fact,intention without action harms self-

confidence.

2. People have been shown in studies tochronically overestimate their self-control ability.1

These two simple points reveal why somany people struggle to change. Theyhave big ambitions, but overestimatetheir ability to make themselves do whatit takes to change. It's a mismatchbetween desire and ability.

Here are two more facts to consider:

1. Doing a little bit is infinitely biggerand better than doing nothing(mathematically and practicallyspeaking).

2. Doing a little bit every day has agreater impact than doing a lot on oneday. How much greater? Profoundly so,because a little bit every day is enoughto grow into a lifelong foundationalhabit, and those are a big deal, as you'llsee.

If these statements seem reasonable toyou, the main conclusion to draw is thatsmall intentions are better than bigintentions. Interesting, right? We're justgetting started.

Have you ever felt stuck? Have you evertried to change yourself for the betterand failed? Have you done it over andover again, and even stopped trying for

long periods of time?

We've all been there, I think, but let meask you these more interesting questions.

What if your failure to take action andstick to your plan was never a problemwith you, but a problem with yourstrategy—the strategy that most of theworld uses and endorses? And what ifthe science about human behavior,willpower, and the brain suggested abetter alternative for sticking to yourplans—one that is rarely practiced orpromoted? And what if a shift to thisnew strategy changed everything for you,and no matter how you felt, you knewyou could take action, reach your goals,

form good habits, and change your life?

Welcome to the world of mini habits.

It all sounds overblown, I know, but youjust read my mini-autobiography upthere. This is the exact reality and therevelation that transpired for me startingin late 2012. The previous ten years ofmy life were a constant search andstruggle to grow, with disappointingresults. But then I tried something thatproduced a breakthrough unlike I hadever experienced before, so I scrambledto understand exactly why this oddstrategy worked so well, and I was (andam still) amazed at how everything fitstogether. And now here's this book.

We're quick to blame ourselves for lackof progress, but slow to blame ourstrategies. Then we repeat them over andover again, trying to make them work.But here's the thing—if you fail using aparticular strategy more than a fewtimes, you need to try another one. Itdoesn't matter if it works for everyoneelse if it doesn't work for you! This is alesson I wish I had learned years ago.

I asked you to touch your nose earlierbecause I wanted you to provesomething to yourself. First, notice thatthere's no reward for touching your nose.Second, consider that you did it anywaybecause you can. If you didn't do it then,do it now so the following words apply

to you (or choose another small action ifyou're one of those stubborn types).

You were able to touch your nosebecause the resistance you felt was notstronger than your willpower.Congratulations! You are now MiniHabits approved.

That was a rudimentary exercise inwillpower. If you can force yourself totouch your nose, then you can havesuccess with this book's strategy. I’m notjoking. This book exists because I didone push-up on December 28, 2012. Myability to do 16 pull-ups in a row and myimproved physique result from that samepush-up. I read and write every single

day because of that push-up. That onepush-up was the first step that led to allof these great changes in my life.

Every great accomplishment rests on thefoundation of what came before it; whenyou trace it back, you'll see one smallstep that started it all. Without that onepush-up, I'd still be struggling to getmotivated to go to the gym, and to readand write consistently. That push-up leadme to discover this new strategy, whichturned into these great benefits. Are youready to hear the story of the one smallaction that changed everything for me?

How It Began: The One Push-up Challenge

I'm thinking about naming it “the goldenpush-up.”

It was December 28, 2012 and the newyear was near. Like many others, Ireflected on 2012 and was notimpressed. I wanted to live better in2013; my top desire was fitness. I wasn'tabout to set a New Year’s resolutionthough—I had decided against themyears ago, because they have an abysmal8% success rate.2

I felt like I had better odds of winning inLas Vegas than in life. Ever since my

later years of high school, I had tried tomake exercise a habit. But for ten yearsit never stuck, despite my efforts. Thosearen't the types of results that instillconfidence in oneself! My motivationalbursts to change would usually last meabout two weeks before I'd quit for onereason or another. Sometimes there wasno reason; I'd just stop. Wanting to dosomething before the arbitrary January1st starting point associated withresolutions, I decided to start byexercising right there on the spot for 30minutes.

But I stood motionless. I couldn’t getmotivated. I went through my usual “getmotivated” routine. Come on Stephen.

True champions put in the extra work. Itried listening to up-tempo music,visualizing myself with a great beachbody, etc. Nothing worked. I felt out ofshape, lethargic, and worthless to thepoint that I couldn't do anything. A 30-minute workout looked like MountEverest. The idea of exercise waswholly unappealing. I felt so defeated,and I was.

It wasn't just the time or the effort of a30-minute workout that intimidated me,it was the total amount of work I neededto put in to reach my fitness desires. Itwas the vast distance between here andthere. A year's worth of workoutsweighed on my mind. I felt guilty,

overwhelmed, and discouraged before Ihad even done anything!

The Turning PointMonths earlier, I had read a fantasticcreative thinking and problem-solvingbook called Thinkertoys by MichaelMichalko. One of the creative thinking“toys” he talks about is called FalseFaces. In False Faces, you consider theopposite of what you're currentlythinking, and see what creative ideasemerge from that. A crude example:instead of building a skyscraper, what ifyou built a structure deep into the earth?This generates creative ideas by forcingyour mind to zoom out and see thespectrum of possibilities.

I had a problem to solve, and thistechnique popped into my head, so Ithought about the opposite of a 30-minute workout. Eating ice cream andwatching TV would be one opposite ofexercise. Then I considered that a full 30minutes just seemed like such a hugechallenge in that moment (i.e. Everest).Another opposite, I decided, could bethe workout’s size. What if, instead ofthis big 30-minute commitment of sweatand discomfort, I did a single push-up? Iwould have no requirement to do more—just one push-up. It was the trueopposite of my Mount Everest workout.

I laughed off the idea, literally. Howpathetic! One push-up isn't going to

help anything. I really need to put inmore work than that! But every time Iswitched back to my first plan, I couldn'tdo it. After I got tired of failing to do the30-minute workout, I thought, Whatever,I'll do one push-up. I got down on theground, did one push-up, and changedmy life for good.

***

When I got into push-up position, Inoticed it was exactly the same as thestart to an actual 30-minute workout. Idid my push-up; my shoulder popped,my elbows needed WD-40; it felt likemy muscles were waking up from a 24-year nap. But I did a few more since I

was already in position. Every push-upwas an annoyance to my underusedmuscles and stubborn brain.

As I stood up, I concluded that it wasbetter than nothing. Mind you, I still feltlike quitting at this point. But then I hadthe idea to set another small challenge ofone pull-up. It was too easy to turndown. I got my pull-up bar set up anddid one. Then I did a few more.Interesting, I thought, this is hard, butnot as hard as I was making it out tobe.

My muscles were warming up. Mymotivation to do more had definitelyincreased, but it was so low to start with

(and I was so out of shape) that I stillhad plenty of internal resistance. Icontinued on with the same strategy,going as small as necessary to continue.During one push-up session in myworkout, I had to set seven micro goalslike so: ok, one more, ok, two more, nowone more. Every time I baited myselfwith a beyond-easy challenge, I met orexceeded it. It felt nice to hit my targets,however small.

When I finished, I had exercised for 20minutes, and felt great about it. Usuallyat this point in a workout, I'd complete a10-minute ab exercise video. But whenthe thought crossed my mind, my brainpromptly shot it down like a bird

crossing the screen in the video gameDuck Hunt, saying, “You had your fun,but don't push your luck.” You canprobably guess what I did next.

I decided to set up my floor mat. Brainaccepted that. Then I decided to find anab video. Brain accepted. Then Idecided to press play. 10 minutes later,my abs were ablaze. It's important tonote that these were individualdecisions. At no point did I have the fullweight of completing a 10-minute ab-ripping program on my mind. If I had, Iwould have never done it.

The day after I had turned one push-upinto the impossible-seeming 30-minute

workout, I wrote “The One Push-upChallenge.” It turned into one of my mostpopular posts to date. I still receivemessages from people telling me howit's helped them to exercise consistently.

As 2013 went on, I continued to requireone push-up per day from myself.Usually, I did more than one. But oneday I forgot until I was already in bed.So I flipped over onto my stomach anddid my one push-up in bed. I laughed atthe thought of meeting the dailyrequirement at the last second. It soundsmeaningless, but it actually felt amazingto succeed so easily and keep the streakalive. Later, I would see how importantthis was for my success.

I noticed two things. First, just a fewpush-ups a day does make a differencein how you feel. I felt stronger and mymuscles were better conditioned.Second, I realized that exercise wasbecoming habitual; even with such awimpy challenge, I was doingsomething every day. Regular workoutswere becoming easier. After thispositive experience which lasted, Iwondered if a scientific explanationexisted for why “stupid small” stepswork better for me than larger goals.Research showed that there are indeedanswers, and you'll see them pepperedthroughout this book. There's no singlestudy that says “Mini habits are the

answer.” Instead, this philosophy ofhabit-building rests on the shoulders ofdozens of studies that have revealed thenature of willpower and the brain, andwhat it takes to take consistent action.

Starting in late June, I made the jumpfrom home to gym, and I've built a fewpounds of muscle since then. OnSeptember 20th, I realized the potentialof this formula for other areas of my life,such as reading and writing. I've amazedmyself since then by increasing mywriting output fourfold and my readingtenfold, all while staying in great shape.All of the things I've been wanting arehappening now. I’ve even started eatingmega salads just because I want to do it.

When you invest in yourself in key areaslike fitness and learning, you tend to doit in other areas too.

For Good Habits Only

Before we get any further, I want you tounderstand that this book will not helpyou quit smoking or control a gamblingaddiction. Mini habits are for goodhabits only—adding positive behaviorsto your life to enrich it for years.Breaking bad habits and making goodhabits do have the same goal—replacinga default behavior with a betterbehavior. With bad habits, your primarymotivation for change is an awayresponse from something bad. With goodhabits, your primary motivation forchange is a toward response tosomething good. Mini habits focuses on

the toward response.

Changing deeply-rooted active badhabits like substance addiction involvesa different psychological process andmay require professional assistance.That said, if you're looking for a long-term play to help with passive badhabits such laziness, fear, or wastingtime, then this book can help youtremendously. Passive bad habits canoften be marginalized by incorporatinggood habits into your life. How can youcontinue with your bad habits if youspend all of your time on good ones?And honestly, adding good habits thisway is pretty easy to do. Quick fixes areoften bogus, but when you've literally

been fighting against your brain for adecade (or more for some of you), then astrategy that works with your brain willbe easy in comparison. With the rightknowledge and strategy to change, whatpreviously seemed impossible becomesrather straightforward and possible. It'slike trying to open a locked door—it'sonly easy if you have the right key (orare a locksmith or thief, but now theanalogy is too complicated).

That said, those covered in darkness(probably because of their bad habits)need light in their life too. If your life isa complete mess of bad habits, adding insome good habits can change you.Darkness is not something that exists on

its own—it's the name we give for theabsence of light. Perhaps people havebad habits because they lack the light ofgood habits, which permits a dark voidin their life. When you add good habitsinto your life, it illuminates anotherpossible path, restores your confidence,and gives you hope. It also serves as abrilliant foundation from which to build.

This information doubles as a lifephilosophy that demonstrates, explains,and celebrates that the first step forwardis always the most important one…byfar. In other words, it can help you inother areas besides your habits. I don'tmerely hope that this book will help you,I'm confident that it will…as confident

as I am that most people’s New Year'sresolutions will fail. That is, it's a highstatistical probability. With mini habits,you can join the ranks of people whochange their lives in the mostunbelievable way.

A Brief Synopsis Of Mini Habits

Since I refer to mini habits throughoutthe book, I want to briefly explain theconcept. A mini habit is basically amuch smaller version of a new habit youwant to form. 100 push-ups daily isminified into one push-up daily. Writing3,000 words daily becomes writing 50words daily. Thinking positively all thetime becomes thinking two positivethoughts per day. Living anentrepreneurial lifestyle becomesthinking of two ideas per day (amongother entrepreneurial things).

The foundation of the Mini Habitssystem is in “stupid small” steps. Theconcept of small steps is nothing new,but how and why they work have notbeen adequately dissected. Of course,small steps are relative too; a small stepfor you could be a giant leap for me.Saying “stupid small” clarifies it,because if a step sounds stupid relativeto the most you can do, it's perfect.

The power of the Mini Habits system isin the application, mindset, built-inpositive feedback looping, naturallyincreasing self-efficacy, and of course,leveraging small steps into habits. Thiswill be explained, but it's also built in;it's a simple system with a complex,

smart backing.

The way we act on these mini habits isby using a small amount of willpower toforce ourselves to do them. It doesn'ttake a lot of willpower to do one push-up or come up with a couple of ideas.

The benefit from following the MiniHabits system is surprisingly big results.First, there's a great chance that you'll do“bonus reps” after you meet your smallrequirement. This is because we alreadydesire these positive behaviors, andstarting them reduces internal resistance.The second benefit is the routine. Even ifyou don't exceed your small requirement,the behavior will begin to become a

(mini) habit. From there, do bonus repsor scale the habit up. Another benefit isconstant success. A bank may be too bigto fail, but mini habits are too small tofail; and so they lack the commondestructive feelings of guilt andinadequacy that come with goal failure.This is one of the very few systems thatpractically guarantees success every daythanks to a potent encouragement spiraland always-attainable targets. Minihabits have made me feel unstoppable;prior to starting mini habits, I feltunstartable.

To summarize, a mini habit is a VERYsmall positive behavior that you forceyourself to do every day. Small steps

work every time, and habits are built byconsistency, so the two were meant to betogether. Hey, it’s still a better love storythan Twilight.

About Habits And The Brain

Why not just use small steps in dailylife? Well, you absolutely should! Buthabits are the framework of your life, soto ignore them is a pretty big mistake.When I discovered the power of smallsteps from the One Push-up Challenge, Ifelt like a superhero who had justdiscovered his superpower andwondered, How can I use this for thegreatest good? Habits were the answer.

This book focuses on using small stepsfor habits because there is nothing moreimportant than your habits. A Duke

University study concluded that about45% of our behavior is from habit.3

They are even more important than this45% stake suggests, because habits arefrequently repeated behaviors (oftendaily), and this repetition adds up to bigbenefits or big damage in the long run.

The habit of writing 1,000 words perday would result in 365,000 wordswritten a year. That's equal to seven50,000-word novels. Though it wouldbe shy of Leo Tolstoy's 580,000-wordbehemoth, War and Peace (that guy surehad a lot to say).

Consider these classic novels that weighin at about 50,000 words each:

• Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker'sGuide To The Galaxy (46,333 words)

• Stephen Crane's The Red Badge OfCourage (50,776 words)

• F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby(50,061 words)

Now, you may not write a novel of suchworld renown on the first try (or the first100), but if you write seven per year,you'll have quite a few attempts toperfect your craft, right?

More potentially life-changing habits:

• The habit of exercising 20 minutes aday is enough to change your physique.

• The habit of eating healthier foods mayadd years to your life (and give youmore vitality throughout).

• The habit of rising one hour earliereach morning to read would give you365 extra hours more per year. At theaverage reading speed of 300 wordsper minute, this extra time would allowyou to read 6,570,000 words, or 131more 50,000-word books per year.That's a LOT of books, and a sure wayto increase your knowledge.

There are also less concrete examplessuch as thinking positively and beinggrateful that can have a dramatic impacton your life. With mini habits, this

“store” of life perks is now open forbusiness. Choose your favorite habitsand add them to your cart. For more minihabit ideas, visit minihabits.com. Butwait, come back here! You've got tofinish the book before you get toocarried away. There's importantinformation ahead that will help yousucceed.

***

Merriam-Webster's dictionary defines ahabit as “a usual way of behaving:something that a person does often in a

regular and repeated way.” Since I tendto think in terms of resistance andwillpower, I say it’s “a behavior that'seasier to do than not to do.”

Habits are not directly accessible—youcan't immediately create or remove oneright now. They are molded over time byrepetition.

What Do Habits Look Like In The Brain?Neural pathways are communicationchannels in the brain, and thesepathways are what habits “look like” inthe physical world.

Here's how it works: once a habit'sassigned neural pathway is triggered by

a thought or external cue, an electricalcharge fires along the pathway in yourbrain, and you'll have an urge or thoughtto engage in the habitual behavior. Forexample, if you take a showerimmediately after waking up every day,you'll have a neural pathway associatedwith that behavior. You'll wake up, the“shower neurons” will fire, and you'llwalk to the shower like a zombie—nothinking required! This is the magic andthe curse of having habits, depending onif they are good or bad. As a habitbecomes more ingrained, the associatedneural pathway will literally get thickerand stronger. Yikes!

Knowing this information simplifies and

clarifies our goal. We want to create andstrengthen specific neural pathways withrepetition. It sounds easy when put thisway, but we'll have to overcome innatehuman limitations to do it. Manystandard habit strategies you'll find don'ttake these proven limitations intoaccount, underestimate how severe theyare, or make vague and unhelpfulstatements like, “It's going to be hard;you've got to want it.” Without a solidplan to handle these limitations, you'llsuffer from burnout or inconsistency andgive up early, even if you go in “firedup.” Can you tell I'm a bit anti-motivational? That's because it failed mefor ten years, but we'll get to that later.

Habits Are A Matter Of Life And... Stress?While we're discussing the importanceof habits, consider stress.

Today's world runs at a faster pace thanever before, and we all seem to be morestressed out as a result. Life isimperfect, and it’s impossible tonavigate it without some stress. Thequestion that most people never think toask is, “How does stress impact myhabits?”

Stress has been shown to increasehabitual behavior—for better or worse!Two experiments at UCLA and one atDuke University found that stress

increased people's gravitation towardhabitual behavior. Based on her study inthe Journal of Personality and SocialPsychology, 4 Professor Wendy Woodargues: “People can’t make decisionseasily when stressed, are low inwillpower or feeling overwhelmed.When you are too tired to make adecision, you tend to just repeat whatyou usually do.”5 This holds true forboth good and bad habits and is a crucialinsight for their importance in our lives.

Just imagine for a second now what canhappen if your bad habits stress you out.It's the perfect recipe for a negativefeedback loop. Your stress triggers a badhabit, which triggers guilt, internal angst,

and more stress, which triggers the habitagain. But now imagine what couldhappen if your habits are naturallystress-relieving, such as exercise. In thiscase, your stress will chauffeur you tothe gym, and the exercise will help youto relieve tension. The difference inimpact on your life is mind-blowing, asone puts you in a positive position tosucceed despite life's harsh occurrences,while the other constantly threatens todrop you into a negative spiral. Being afootball fan, I think of the big swings ingames where one team is about to scorea touchdown from the one-yard line, butthe quarterback throws an interceptionthat the other team returns for a

touchdown. That's not just seven pointsfor the other team, it takes away theprobable seven points his team wasgoing to gain! It's a 14-point swing.Because of stress, all habits tend to be“14-point swings.”

The other implication this has for us is inthe difficulty of change. Higher amountsof stress make it more challenging for usto change our lives. As Professor Woodsays, “You tend to just repeat what youusually do.” If stress makes us run to ourhabits, then it also makes us run awayfrom everything else, including that newpositive behavior that we'd like to makeinto a habit. You can't see it, but I'msmiling right now. The standard habit

formula crumbles when we're stressedbecause our existing habits get stronger,but the Mini Habits system won't failyou here.

How Long Does It Take To Form A New Habit?It depends. Anyone who tells youdifferently is repeating what they'veheard (which is wrong).

It is NOT 21 or 30 days. For Pete's andeveryone else's sake, I want to put thisup on every billboard! The 21-day habitmyth was possibly started by Dr.Maxwell Maltz, a plastic surgeon. Dr.Maltz reportedly found that amputeestook about 21 days to get used to the loss

of a limb. So he argued that 21 days washow long it took for people to adjust toany life changes. Really, Doc? I wouldargue that coping with losing a limb andtrying to drink more water are not thesame type of experience. And I'll addthat they're both quite different fromtrying to do 150 push-ups a day.

The most-cited viable study on habitformation duration was published in2009 in the European Journal Of SocialPsychology.6 Each participant chose an“eating, drinking or activity behavior tocarry out daily in the same context (forexample ‘after breakfast’) for 12weeks.” And what did they find?

The average time for a behavior tobecome habit was 66 days. But therange was wild, from 18 to 254 days,showing that there is huge variation inpeople's time to reach habit automaticity,and that it can end up taking a very longtime in some cases. 21- and 30-daychallenges are popular, but they're highlyunlikely to form many types of habits.Drinking a glass of water every daycould fall into the 21-day window, butsomething more challenging like 100 sit-ups daily could take a couple hundreddays or more to become habit.

That's the bad news. The good news isthat habits aren't snap on, snap off—ifyou do 100 sit-ups for 60 days, day 61

will be much easier for you than day onewas, even if it isn't completely automaticyet. Building a habit is like riding a bikeup a steep incline that levels out, peaks,and goes down. To start, you have topush with all the force your legs canmuster. It gets progressively easier afterthat, but you must keep pedaling untilyou reach the top of the hill or you'll gobackwards and lose your progress.

In my experience, the first sign of habitformation is decreased resistance, whichmakes perfect sense. Our mindcommunicates internally by sendingelectrical impulses through these neuralpathways, and we know that electricityalways takes the path of least resistance.

Like this concept, our brain prefers toperform habits because they haveexisting pathways and known rewards.But new behaviors are unproven, risky,and have no neural pathway. So whenyou don't have a solid pathway for thisbehavior yet, you have to manuallyoverride the typical behavior. As you doit more, the “baby neural pathway” willstart to grow, and over time, it willcompete with the previous behavior.

As for the process, it doesn't matter howlong a habit takes you to form becausethe goal is to do it forever anyway. Whywould you want to exercise for 6 monthsand quit when you reached your goal?Wouldn't it be disheartening to regress

after that point? What really matters isrecognizing the signs of a behaviorbecoming a habit, after which you canswitch your focus to something else andstill maintain the behavior.

One more interesting note from the 2009study: researchers concluded thatmissing a day did not derail a habit,physiologically speaking; one day didn'tmake or break the process. Butpsychologically, missing a day can be aproblem if you let it. It's better not tomiss a day, but keep this fact in mind ifyou do—it might stop you from gettingdiscouraged and losing your progress.

How Your Brain Works

“I am a brain, Watson. The rest of me is a mere

appendix.” ― Arthur Conan Doyle (Sherlock Holmes, The

Adventure of the Mazarin Stone)

In this chapter, I've taken the liberty ofslicing the brain up into two differententities—the subconscious brain and theconscious brain. The brain is far morecomplex than that with many parts, butfor our purposes, this is sufficient.

Let this next point seep into the deepestdepths of your mind and lodge therepermanently. Never forget this:

Repetition is the language of the(subconscious) brain.

(Hint: If you repeat it, you won't forgetit. And there's the first and last brainjoke.)

The goal in creating habits is to change

your brain with repetition. But the brainwill resist changes unless they reward ithandsomely. So really, the two keys tohabit change as far as the brain isconcerned are repetition and reward. Itwill be more willing to repeat somethingwhen there is a reward.

Have you ever driven a car withoutpower steering? You have to turn thewheel several rotations just to get asmall response from the car. Our brainsrespond to change like cars withoutpower steering. Each iteration results ina negligible difference, but repeatedconsistently, these small alterations cancreate a big change in your brain (andyour life).

Your subconscious brain lovesefficiency; this is why we have habits.When you repeat a behavior over time,your brain learns to automate theprocess. It's more energy efficient toautomatically do something than tomanually weigh your options and decideto act the same way every time. Whenyou make a decision very quickly, it isprobably from habit, even if you thinkyou're actively deciding. In a way, youmade the decision a while ago. Choosingyour favorite ice cream flavor is oneexample.

Slow-Changing, Stable Brains

The human brain is slow-changing andstable; it has routines and a frameworkthat allow it to respond consistently tothe world. Having a slow-changing brainis frustrating at times, but overall, it'shighly beneficial. Imagine if yourpersonality and life could transformovernight—you would go crazy!

Once you successfully develop newhealthy habits, everything becomeseasier. You can get up, eat your healthybreakfast, and go to the gym everymorning automatically instead of

conducting a drawn-out battle with yourbrain. You can do the right things withlittle effort. For many, this feels like adaydream. They only know the dark sideof stability: how the brain compels themto eat junk food, watch TV, smoke, andbite their nails. But good habits are asamazing as bad habits are dreadful.

I know exercise is a habit for mebecause my identity has changed with it.It would feel odd and unsatisfying in athat’s not me kind of way if I didn’t goto the gym a few times per week. Lastyear, however, my identity was as aperson who did just enough to stay inaverage shape. Both scenarios emergefrom habit. Since 45% of our behavior is

automatic regardless of what we do, wemight as well make it beneficial to ourlives and goals. In order to do thatexpertly, we need to understand the twoprimary players in the brain.

A Stupid Repeater & A Smart Manager

Most of your brain is stupid. Well, notyours specifically—a certain part ofevery human brain is stupid, in the sensethat it doesn't consider lung cancer whileyou smoke or the perks of great absbefore you exercise. Worse, this is thestrong part of your brain that usuallygets its way long term. It recognizes andrepeats patterns until told otherwise. It'scalled the basal ganglia.

There is another section of your brain,however, that is really smart. It's calledthe prefrontal cortex and it's located

behind your forehead. It's the “manager”that understands long-term benefits andconsequences, and thankfully, it has theability to override the basal ganglia. Ithandles short-term thinking anddecision-making too.

Just now, we've covered the two criticaltools involved in habit change—thebasal ganglia and the prefrontal cortex. Ilike the way Psychologist Dr. DavidNowell differentiates the prefrontalcortex from the rest of the brain. He saysthat everything except the prefrontalcortex determines “what is” and theprefrontal cortex focuses on “what couldbe.”

The only way to create habits is to teachthe rest of your brain to like what theprefrontal cortex wants. The prefrontalcortex is what resists chocolate cake (ifat all possible), wants to learn French,wants to be fit, and would like to write abook someday. It's the conscious part ofyour brain that you'd identify as “you.”But the problem is that it tires out easily.Perhaps more accurately, because itsfunctions are so powerful, it's an energyhog that tires you out. And when you tireout (or are stressed, as we covered), therepetitious part takes over.

The basal ganglia isn't conscious oraware of higher-level goals that areunique to humans. But it is an efficient

pattern-repeater that saves us energy. Sowhile it may not be “intelligent” like theprefrontal cortex, it is an incrediblyimportant part of the brain. And once wetrain the basal ganglia to do positivebehaviors automatically, we're reallygoing to love it.

This is the system we all have to workwith. It sounds poorly designed at first,as the smart prefrontal cortex has lessstamina than the thoughtless, repeatingbasal ganglia does, but it's actuallybrilliant when you know how to work it.How do clever weaklings everovercome their dumb, strongcounterparts? I'll give you a hint—it'snot through brute physical force. I'm sure

you already know that, perhaps becauseyou are now recalling the failed attemptsof your conscious mind to control yoursubconscious mind by brute force orwillpower. The answer, of course, is toemploy smart strategies to overcomethe prefrontal cortex's naturalweaknesses.

The Prefrontal Cortex—Your Defense Against Automated Behavior

In order to understand the prefrontalcortex better, we're going to look at whathappens when it's gone. How does abrain operate without one? Not well.The upcoming study shows what theprefrontal cortex does, as well as whatthe rest of the brain does. When youremove something, you can see theimpact of what it did and also how theparts operate without its influence.

Francois Lhermitte was a Frenchneurologist who examined patients with

damaged frontal lobes. What he found inthe following study was evidence thatthe brain’s operation changes drasticallywithout its “manager,” the prefrontalcortex (which is part of the frontallobes). 7

There are two groups of interest inLhermitte's study—people with damagedfrontal lobes and people with healthyfrontal lobes. In the experiment, thesubjects would sit across from anexaminer, who asked interview-stylequestions. The examiner’s task was todisplay indifference to the interviewee,refuse to respond to their questions, andoccasionally perform random andpuzzling gestures. He'd thumb his nose,

give a military salute, fold paper and putit into an envelope, chew paper, sing, taphis leg, whimper, and more. (Ha!Science is fun[ny]!) Here's what theyfound.

Healthy-lobed people, as one wouldexpect, found his behavior odd. In purelyscientific terms, the response was,“What's wrong with this dude?” Many ofthe younger participants laughed. Andwhen asked if they thought to imitatehim, they said, “No, not at all.” 8

But here's where it gets very interesting.Almost all people with frontal lobedamage did imitate the examiner'sabsurd gestures—they imitated him with

great precision and without fail. Forexample, the men willingly urinated on awall in front of others without any hint ofsurprise or concern. When they lackedthe ability to imitate him exactly (such asnot having paper to fold or chew), theywere said to find ways to compensate“perfectly.” 9

From the study: “When interviewed afteran examination, all [damaged lobe]patients could remember the examiner’sgestures and, when questioned as to thereason for their imitative behavior,replied that because the examiner hadmade the gesture, they felt they had toimitate him. On being told that they hadnot been told to imitate the gestures,

their answer was that obviously sincethe gestures had been made, they must beimitated. After being told not to imitate,most patients displayed the same IB(imitation behavior).”10

Those with damaged frontal lobescouldn't help but imitate the interviewer(even when asked not to). With damagedfrontal lobes, it appears people lose theability to make “override” decisionsover their subconscious mind. Thesubconscious is almost like a differententity, a machine. Also interesting is thatthe normal participants forgot some ofthe gestures of the examiner, but thosewith damaged frontal lobes rememberedevery single one. This suggests that the

presence of healthy frontal lobes (whichagain, contain the essential prefrontalcortex) steals some of our focus awayfrom subconscious pattern recognitionand can inhibit or initiate behavior. Thisis why we call it the “manager.” Itoversees automated operations and stepsin when it sees something that could bedone better. Now for the flip side—whathappens when it's the basal ganglia thatisn't functioning properly?

The Basal Ganglia—Your Pattern Detector

Your brain's basal ganglia is technicallya group of nuclei that act as a single unit,and plays a central role in habitformation and procedural learning.

But research also indicates that thebrain's many systems interact with eachother in complex ways and the basalganglia can't necessarily be isolated asbeing “the habit part of the brain.”11

Neuroscience, while helpful, cannotcompletely explain exactly how thebrain works. That's not to say it'sdeceitful or inaccurate, but rather a

small glimpse into a big mystery. Thebrain's workings are so intricate andcomplex that modern science still has alot to learn. That said, knowing the basalganglia is the main player in habitformation is useful. When combinedwith experience, experimentation, andgood sense, our limited knowledge ofthe brain's workings is a powerful allyfor personal growth.

Lhermitte's study on people withdysfunctional or damaged frontal lobesshowed us the importance of theexecutive function of the brain, whichcan prevent us from robotically doingundesirable things. But what happenswhen it's the basal ganglia that's

damaged or functioning improperly?There's a study on that too. It suggeststhat a damaged or malfunctioning basalganglia causes you to lose your ability tohave any habits.12

Researchers gathered people of threeclassifications—healthy people,Parkinson's disease patients, and thosewith memory problems. Parkinson’sdisease patients are those whose brainsstruggle to deliver the neurotransmitterdopamine to the basal ganglia due to celldeath. This causes dysfunction of thebasal ganglia.

Participants were given four cards withrandom shapes on them, and asked to

predict whether each card meant rain orsunshine. It would be very difficult toconsciously form relationships betweenthe cards and results, but there was asubtle pattern that could be picked upsubconsciously. There were 50 trials,and after about ten trials, both normalparticipants and memory lossparticipants gradually improved theirguessing percentage from 50% to 65-70%; their subconscious mind picked upthe patterns that suggested rain orsunshine. The Parkinson's diseaseparticipants, however, did not improvefrom 50%. Without a healthy basalganglia, their brain couldn't detectpatterns (and thus, it would be hard for

them to develop new habits).

From these studies, we can see the brainis, in vastly oversimplified terms, a two-part system of executive decision-making and pattern-recognition forautomated behaviors. The managementfunctions of the prefrontal cortex can bedynamic and responsive, but they use upa lot of energy (and willpower). Theautomation functions of the basal gangliaare effective and efficient. They save usenergy and take care of tasks that don'tneed constant monitoring.

This leads into the next importantconsideration—how do we getourselves to do things consistently with

these two brain components?

Before a behavior becomes habit, thetwo ways to get yourself going aremotivation and willpower. Before youread this next chapter, say your finalgoodbyes to motivation, because you'renot going to need it anymore.

Motivation Vs. Willpower

"Emotions will either serve or master, depending on who is

in charge." — Jim Rohn

I'm about to unleash fury on motivationas a starting strategy, but motivation and

willpower aren't such “either or”strategies. They have an importantrelationship with each other that thechart below shows. The basic premiseof this chapter is NOT that motivation isa bad thing, but that it's an unreliablestrategy for lasting change.

Now, before you interrupt me to ask,“Hey, where are the mini habits?” giveme a moment to explain. I’ve created asimple chart on the next page to show therelationship between willpower andmotivation.

Chart explanation: Motivation is the x-axis, and willpower cost is the y-axis. When motivation is at its peak (lower right corner), willpower cost is zero or negligible. That's

because you don't need to force yourself to do something you already really want to do. But when motivation drops to zero, strong internal resistance means that the willpower “cost” is high (upper left corner, where willpower cost is 100 and motivation is 0).

More about this relationship will bediscussed in the willpower section, butall you need to know for now is thatwhen you're not motivated to do

something, the “willpower cost”skyrockets. And when willpower cost ishigh, it makes it difficult for you tosustain a behavior over time (and buildit into a habit).

Now, let's take a hard look at “gettingmotivated,” which dominates self-helpliterature despite being completelyineffective long term.

The Many Problems With “Getting Motivated”

Does getting motivated work? Theanswer is a maddening sometimes. Attimes, you can conjure up the motivationto exercise or write 2,000 words, butother times, you might end up taking anap, watching TV, or drinking beerinstead. This is a huge problembecause…

If getting motivated is your strategy,you can’t build habits.

We know that habits require consistentrepetition. It wasn’t until the 10th trial inthe prior study that participants’ brains

picked up the pattern, and behaviors takemuch longer than that to be recognized.

Don't get me wrong here. Motivation isan important feeling with many benefits.But think of it as a bonus, something nicewhen it appears. I know it’s possibleyou currently rely on getting motivated,so this next section's aim is to convinceyou to drop it. I genuinely want you todisown the concept for your own good,and here are the reasons why.

Motivation Is UnreliableMotivation is unreliable because it’sbased on how you feel, and we’veknown for centuries that human feelingsare fluid and unpredictable. Many things

can alter your feelings: an event, bloodsugar levels, depression, chemicalfluctuations, hormones, health, externalstimuli, energy levels, beliefs, and catvomit. In other words, anything canalter your feelings. Do you really wantto place your hopes on something so...volatile? The #1 rule of any foundationis that it must be solid. Motivation islike building a house on liquid. (Don’tyou dare mention house boats—it ruinsthe analogy.)

Everyone has “off” days when energy isa bit lower. That means your motivationto do productive things will be lowertoo. This strategy makes us resort tothings like motivational videos, articles,

self pep-talks, and other short-termboosts.

And think about this: with a “getmotivated” strategy, not only do youhave to be motivated to do something,but you have to be most motivated to doit. So, to get motivated to exercise, youwould have to want to exercise morethan you want to eat chips and watch TV.You'll only succeed sometimes.

The activities that are good for us(eating raw broccoli, running 8 miles,and then eating more broccoli) are notthe kinds of things that are easy to getmotivated to do. The short-term rewardsof raw broccoli and exercise have a

really hard time competing with icecream on the couch while watching amovie. My motivation to do the latterstays high.

You Won't Always Want To Get MotivatedThe motivation theory of growth goeslike this: if I want to do something, Idon't need to force myself to do it (usewillpower)! That's true. When you'remotivated, it's easy to do things, and itdoesn't require much, if any, willpower.Remember the chart at the beginning ofthis chapter? When you’re fullymotivated, willpower cost is zero. Thisseems like the best way at first, and evenmore so when you consider that

willpower is a limited resource(covered later). This makes motivationhighly desirable in theory, but as theysay, “Every rose has its thorns, whichcut your finger and make you curse infront of your nephew.”

Problem: motivation is not easy (andsometimes nearly impossible) tocultivate on demand. Look no furtherthan your own experiences to verify this.How easy has it been to motivateyourself when you're tired, sick, have aheadache, feel “off,” or just really wantto do something else more fun? This ideaof changing what you desire just byfocusing on benefits really discredits thepower and influence of how we feel. It's

hard to change your feelings bythinking. It's when we have a lot ofenergy, a healthy mindset, and no majortemptations that we succeed withmotivation. But when the time comes toact and the scenario appears far lessfavorable, we'll decide to “do ittomorrow.”

When I was tired and had a headacherecently, there was no motivationalphrase or thought that was going to makeme work on this book. I didn't want toget motivated either. I wanted to sleep!Thankfully, I didn't rely on motivation.

There will be times in your life that youwon't be motivated to get motivated.

This means that you… bear with mehere…don’t want to want to want toexercise. (Yes, that was three “want tos”in a row!) That gives you a sense of howfar away from taking action you can getwith motivation-based thinking. Insteadof just doing something, you have towant to do it, but sometimes you havebuild up motivation just to want to bemotivated. It’s every bit as crazy as itsounds. If you don’t want to getmotivated, and getting motivated wasyour strategy for doing things, you havelost the battle before it has begun. Andyour habits will die young.

Some People Habitually Think Motivation Is The Only Basis For

Taking ActionAs getting motivated has beenestablished by parroting self-helpwriters as THE way to get yourself totake action and improve your life, fewpeople question it. It's standardprocedure. Motivational websitesabound and thrive as people visit themfor their “motivational fix.” I’ll admitthat getting motivated is a better strategythan nothing, but nothing isn't hard tobeat.

The desired effect of exercise, as anexample, has three possible causes:motivation, willpower, or habit. Thoughevery action is some combination ofmotivation and willpower, we tend to

rely more on one or the other. Then thereis that weird hybrid of trying to getmotivated while saying you have to do itanyway (it usually comes to this whenthe battle is lost).

A destructive habit to have is believingthat you have to be motivated to act. It’snot a problem when you would like to bemotivated, but when you can't doanything unless you’re motivated. Thisis the perfect way to enter a lazinessspiral. Being lazy makes you feel lazy,and if you always feel lazy and followthis motivation rule, then you'll continueto be lazy. There's no way out!

This idea that motivation precedes

action can become deeply ingrained intoa person's psyche. But there's no rulethat says your feelings and actions mustalways match. It creates a confining,frustrating lifestyle.

Motivation Sets Us Up For Failure Through The Law Of Decreasing EnthusiasmOk, let's just say that you're able to getmotivated to read for two hours everyday. And say that you're able to do thisfor three weeks straight. At this point,you'd likely have a very weak habitbeginning to form for this behavior. Butsince you've been relying on motivation,this crucial transition period will likelymean the end of your progress.

“The law of decreasing enthusiasm” isn'ta real law, but a term I made up becauseit is more descriptive than thecorresponding economic principle: “TheLaw of Diminishing Marginal Utility.”This economic law says you will enjoyyour 5th slice of pizza marginally lessthan your 4th slice, and your 4th slice lessthan your 3rd. When it comes to behaviorrepetition, the same sort of thinghappens.

As a behavior begins its transition intohabit, you will become less emotionalabout it. It will even begin to seemboring and mundane. Count on it. JeremyDean says in his book, Making Habits,Breaking Habits, that “A habit doesn’t

just fly under the radar cognitively; italso does so emotionally. [...] The act ofperforming a habit is curiouslyemotionless.” 13 Dr. Wood and hercolleagues noted this occurrence in astudy they conducted at Texas A&M.When participants performed a habitualbehavior, they were decidedly lessemotional about it.14 This is why thinkingyou need motivation to take action worksagainst you in habit-building. Repetitiondoesn’t make us more excited to dothings, it makes us less excited; the perkhabits offer is less resistance and moreautomaticity. Dean says, “The fact thathabitual behavior doesn’t stir up strongemotions is one of its advantages.”15

That’s true, because anything dependenton human emotion is completelyunreliable.

The initial excitement of startingsomething is an ally at first, but itbecomes a formidable enemy when itfades and makes you wonder ifsomething is wrong. You greatly reducethis risk, however, by not relying on yourmotivation and feelings in the first place.

It's great to be enthusiastic, but let'sassume that mindset as a bonus, ratherthan the cue for taking action. It’s betterto do something because you choose todo it, a solid foundation that does notfluctuate wildly. Lack of enthusiasm

after some time is counterintuitively apositive sign that control is moving tothe more stable and automated basalganglia.

This predictable enthusiasm decrease isone reason why you see so many peopledrop their exercise plans after January.Despite their success exercising, they’llnotice, I’m not feeling motivatedanymore, and stop going. Perhaps if theyunderstood why they didn’t feelmotivated anymore, they’d beencouraged and continue.

As a main strategy, motivation might begood enough to get you by in life(maybe), but it’s a poor choice

compared to willpower. Whilewillpower is the best strategy, mostpeople don’t know how to use it anddrain their willpower reserves quickly.

Despite everything I just said, don’tworry; you can still enjoy your routinesvery much. You’ll always be a humanwith feelings and emotions! I'm notasking you to never feel again. I'm askingyou to never let your feelings stop youagain.

Why Willpower Beats Motivation

Now that I've bashed motivation, I'mgoing to tell you how to get more of it.Contradiction? No, the reason I don'tlike motivation isn't because it's bad.For example, I need a baseline level ofmotivation to write these words. Butmotivation, through no fault of its own,has been masqueraded about town as thesolution to personal growth. It's like if Itold you carrots cured cancer. Carrotsare good for you, but they won't likelycure anyone of cancer. So now this goodthing (carrot) has been made into anenemy of the truth and is deceiving

people. In this way, motivation is an evilcarrot.

The Mini Habits willpower strategy isvery conducive to motivation, whichagain, is good, but unreliable. I've foundthat by using willpower, motivationbecomes more reliable; motivationcomes fast when you take action first.There are three reasons why forcingyourself to take action with willpower isfar better than trying to get motivated.

Willpower is ReliableUnlike motivation-based techniques,willpower is extremely reliable. If youforce yourself to do something no matterwhat, that's dependable. Of course, that's

only if you can force yourself to do it.And it just so happens that these nexttwo advantages of willpower make iteven more reliable.

Willpower Can Be StrengthenedUnlike motivation, willpower can bestrengthened like a muscle. Leading self-control researcher Professor RoyBaumeister found in 1999 that studentswho had exercised their willpower toimprove their posture for two weeks,“showed a marked improvement onsubsequent measures of self-control”compared to those who hadn’t workedon their posture. 16 Another study foundthat a two-month aerobic exerciseprogram resulted in improvements in

other unrelated self-control activities. 17

This is self-improvement gold. Thesestudies suggest we can strengthen ourvery ability to improve ourselves!

But if something neither works the firsttime nor any time after, then you'respinning your wheels by continuallytrying. Motivation works sometimes, soit’s tricky to evaluate. But if you look atyour long-term results using motivation,you might see that it isn’t workingconsistently. Motivation is notsomething that’s easy to improve eitherbecause when your dog dies, your moodwill darken; when you're tired or in abad mood, you won't feel like

exercising. You can, however, improveyour ability to take action despite feelingresistance due to emotional trauma, lackof confidence, bad moods, or low energylevels. This is willpower.

Willpower Strategies Can Be ScheduledIf you rely on motivation, you will havea difficult time sticking to a schedule.When it's time to write, who knows ifyou'll be motivated or not? It'sunpredictable and not calendar-friendly.

Using willpower, though, you canschedule an activity and do it whetheryou are motivated at the time or not. Thisallows for consistency, which is both

habit- and calendar-friendly. Habitsaren't made from a general plan to writewhen you can or exercise when the starsalign. You've got to put the task on yourcalendar and do it, and that requireswillpower.

The big question remains—how can wemaintain consistent success usingwillpower? To answer this question,let's summarize what science tells usabout willpower and take it from there.

How Willpower Works

It used to be believed that willpowerwas an unlimited resource of,well...will. The idea was that if youwanted something enough, you wouldalways have enough willpower to makeyourself get it. That idea changed whenBaumeister conducted a somewhat cruelstudy in 1996. 18 It started with 67people in a room, which was promptlysaturated with the tempting smell offreshly baked chocolate chip cookies.Then they brought the cookies and otherchocolate treats into the room. Here isthe cruel twist—only some of theparticipants were given chocolate treats

to eat. Others, God help them, weregiven radishes to snack on instead! Evenas a person who loves snacking on rawradishes, I feel their pain.

Scientists from the study humorouslynoted that quite a few of the radisheaters appeared to “exhibit clear interestin the chocolates, to the point of lookinglongingly at the chocolate display and ina few cases even picking up the cookiesto sniff at them.” (Ibid., 255) As I said,cruel.

After this, chocolate and radishparticipants alike were given a puzzle tosolve. Those who ate radishes spent lessthan half the time attempting the puzzle

as those who had consumed chocolate,and they attempted to solve it fewertimes before giving up. It appears thathaving to eat radishes instead of cookiesdrained their will to continue strugglingwith the puzzle. Baumeister named thisphenomenon “ego depletion.” Therehave since been dozens of studiesverifying the results from thisgroundbreaking study.

Decisions Drain Willpower Too!Don’t just blame the radishes. A self-control study found people who made adifficult decision earlier in the day weremore likely to cave in to a temptationlater, showing a decrease in self-control.19 It seems that big decisions

share the same pool of energy as ourwillpower. I imagine that anything thatuses the prefrontal cortex could have thiseffect, because the prefrontal cortexhandles short-term memory and currentthinking. But you wouldn't typically thinkthat making a tough decision couldadversely affect your ability to resist icecream or force yourself to exercise laterin the day.

This means one thing—we've got tomaximize our self-control reserves to beeffective at changing ourselves. I includethis just to show how other things canundercut our willpower reserves,making the philosophy behind minihabits even more important.

An Important Meta-Analysis Of WillpowerA meta-analysis is a “study of studies”that attempts to extract importantconclusions from the body of relatedwork on a given topic. This helps tosmooth out possible aberrations fromindividual studies. If something holdstrue over dozens of properly conductedstudies and thousands of participants,there's a very high probability of thatdata being reliable, illuminating, anduseful.

In 2010, a meta-analysis of 83 studieswas done on ego depletion. 20 Egodepletion essentially means the samething as willpower or self-control

depletion, so I will use these termsinterchangeably. From this meta-analysis, the five biggest factors found tocause ego depletion were effort,perceived difficulty, negative affect,subjective fatigue, and blood glucoselevels. These factors, then, are the fivebiggest obstacles that keep us fromsustaining success with a willpower-based strategy. What do we do oncewe've exhausted our willpower? Is allhope lost then? According to theanalysis, motivational incentives,training on self-control tasks, andglucose supplementation promoted betterself-control of ego-depleted people.(Ibid.)

This gives us a wealth of informationabout how best to manage willpower.Here is an important motivation andwillpower recap to set up this next partabout the Mini Habits strategy foradding healthy habits to your life:

• New (or non-habit) behaviors arestarted by using motivation orwillpower.

• Motivation isn't reliable, so it can't bethe strategy for building habits.

• Willpower is reliable, but only if youdon't run out of it.

• There are five main causes ofwillpower depletion: effort, perceived

difficulty, negative affect, subjectivefatigue, and blood glucose levels.

• If we can successfully overcome thesefive hurdles, we should find success.

In the next chapter, we'll discuss howmini habits fit everything we've coveredso far, starting with these five maincauses of willpower depletion.

The Strategy Of Mini Habits

“It's not what we do once in a while that shapes our lives.

It's what we do consistently.” ― Anthony Robbins

The Mini Habits strategy is forcingyourself to take 1-4 “stupid small”

strategic actions every day. Theseactions are too small to fail, and toosmall to skip for special occasions. Theyserve dual purposes—to spark you to domore, and to become (mini) habits.

Now we’ll look at how the Mini Habitsstrategy generally applies the principleswe’ve learned thus far. The specificstep-by-step instructions of the MiniHabits strategy come two chapters afterthis one.

Using Willpower The Mini Habits Way

There was a study on ego depletion thatfound some correlation betweenbelieving willpower is limited andwillpower becoming limited.21 Thosewho didn't believe their willpower hada limit appeared to last longer in egodepletion activities. At first, this appearsto be a strike against having mini habits,because they’re designed around theassumption that willpower is limited (asshown in the meta-analysis). But let meexplain why mini habits are a failsafeagainst either scenario.

If willpower is truly limited, then minihabits preserve it by starting small. Butsay that willpower is only limited by ourbelief that it's limited. What would thatmean for mini habits? It's great news!You’ll believe you have unlimitedwillpower with mini habits because theyrequire almost no willpower. So in thecase that you're bursting at the seamswith willpower energy, mini habits willget you started and allow you to makegreat bonus progress. And in the casethat you're completely exhausted and outof willpower, mini habits will get youstarted anyway and allow you to makethe most of your capabilities at the time.The belief that you can take action no

matter what is built into this theory, andit has not failed me a single time. Notonce has my willpower been insufficientto complete a mini habit.

Now, I want to highlight again the fivemain causes of ego-depletion found fromthe 83-study meta-analysis mentionedearlier. The biggest five ego depletiondrains were found to be (in no particularorder):

• Effort

• Perceived difficulty

• Negative affect

• Subjective fatigue

• Blood glucose levels

Let's examine how all five of thesewillpower threats are mostly orcompletely nullified by mini habits.

EffortMini habits require very little actualeffort. You're going to be doing onepush-up, writing 50 words, reading twopages, or other very easy tasks. Thesubsequent bonus effort fromoverachieving is variable, meaning somedays will be more productive thanothers. This is a natural structure thatgreatly reduces the chance for burnout.I've often planned to write 50 words andwritten 2,000 words. Other times, I've

written closer to 50 just to meet therequirement.

The Mini Habits system is both rigidand flexible in strategic places. It's rigidin the beginning, forcing you to start, butit's flexible after that, allowing you todecide how much extra you want to do.The initial effort requires hardly anywillpower.

Result with mini habits: very little egodepletion.

Perceived DifficultyMini habits have almost zero perceiveddifficulty by design, a primary benefitthat compounds when you do extra.Remember when I talked about the big

“mountain” that my 30-minute workoutwas to me? That workout had a veryhigh perceived difficulty—my sense ofthe difficulty was greater than the actualdifficulty. But when I decided to startwith one push-up and continued in thatfashion, the perceived difficulty droppedsubstantially. Setting mini goals is thebest way to drop the perceived difficultyin any project.

Once you start and are free to continue,your perceived difficulty will be muchlower due to the psychological impact ofhaving already started. Just like inphysics, the greatest inertia comesbefore the start of motion. Once you're inmotion, everything gets easier as a result

of momentum (and increasedmotivation).

Starting, even in a small way, alsobrings your mind into reality, and this isimportant. Before you take action, yourmind can only imagine what a particularbehavior would be like. My initialprojection of a 30-minute workout waslike scaling Mount Everest. It waswrong. When it comes to activities thatrequire physical or mental effort, it'sextremely common to overestimate howdifficult they are. After I completed my30-minute workout from force-startingwith one push-up, I realized how absurdmy initial perceived difficulty was.

Result with mini habits: very little egodepletion (even as you continue beyondyour original target). The reason startingis the hardest part is because it carriesthe brunt of the weight of thecommitment. Once we start, we feel as ifwe need to finish our original intentionto count it as a success. This is why wetend not to start a project that intimidatesus. We’d rather not start if we won’tfinish. This is why mini habits are soeasy. The total intention is so small,there's no risk of quitting too early. Bystarting small and entering the reality ofdoing the work, your mind will see thatone small step is not as difficult as itfirst seemed, and that taking the next step

isn’t difficult either.

Negative AffectNegative affect simply means theexperience of unpleasant feelings; itclearly played a role in the chocolateand radish study. Participants weretempted by the sight and smell ofchocolate and were given the lessdesirable radishes. Being tempted withchocolate only to be denied even a tastewas a very negative experience, perhapsmore than we'd think (imagine someonepresenting you with cookies and thenwithholding them. Ack!). As mini habitsare for adding good things, negativeaffect is less relevant unless your actionis directly replacing another pleasure.

Eating radishes alone won't depletewillpower, for example, but whenjuxtaposed against chocolatey goodness,you bet they will!

Result with mini habits: typically noego depletion. Even if you're replacing apleasure with a mini habit, thecommitment is so small that you won’tfeel negative affect from it. More often,you’ll be replacing time-wastingbehaviors with beneficial ones, whichinduces a positive feeling.

Subjective Fatigue This is an interesting one, isn't it? Itdoesn't say fatigue; it says subjectivefatigue, implying that we're not

completely objective in our assessmentof our own fatigue. It turns out thatwillpower is a battle of the mind, andaccording to some of these topwillpower drainers, the battle appears tobe between the perception of yourstrength relative to your task.

Mini habits thankfully come with a miniamount of subjective fatigue. Subjectivefatigue depends on many factors, and abig one is how you see yourself stackingup against your goal. I've noticed thatwhen my goal is large, my subjectivefatigue worsens. This is logical, as themind “looks ahead” to the upcomingwork and perhaps feels the impact early.A recent study found that our

imaginations are so powerful that theycan change what we physically see andhear in the real world,22 so it is not at alla stretch to think that expecting a heavyworkload can impact our energy levelstoo. This idea was also supported byresearchers in the meta-analysis, whonoted, “expecting further acts of self-control exacerbated the effect [of egodepletion].”23 I noticed that when mygoal became j ust one push-up, mysubjective fatigue shrunk. In fact, I felt Ihad plenty of energy to do a single push-up, and the thought that I could easily dosomething, albeit small, was energizing.

Result with mini habits: Nothing cancompletely take away subjective fatigue,

but mini habits mitigate it very well. Inrelation to your mini goals, you may feela sense of empowerment and energy.Even when I've been exhausted(subjectively), I've still felt sufficientlyenergized to just read two pages or write50 words. If you're wondering about thevalue in “only doing that much,” it's highand it’s covered later.

Blood Glucose LevelsGlucose (sugar) is your primary energysource. If you have low glucose in yourblood, you're going to feel very tired. Ifit's dangerously low, you can even passout. Your blood sugar levels aredetermined by genetics, diet, andlifestyle.

As for mini habits, they are independentof your blood sugar, but they can help topreserve it by being the most efficientway to spend your willpower energy. Itis far more mentally energy efficient tobreak things down into smallcomponents that are easily “mentallydigested” and less stressful. The goal oflosing 100 pounds in a year is a constantenergy drain and burden. And with thisgoal, it's possible to lose 50 pounds andfeel like a failure. Why would anyone beinterested in that?! One workout feelslike a drop in the bucket, and it is in thegrand scheme of your massive goal. It'shard to feel good after a workout when itrepresents almost nothing compared to

your goal. With mini habits, though,willpower is preserved as much aspossible, every step you take feels likesuccess, and going beyond your goalfeels even better than that. It’s a systemthat makes you feel like a winner,because people who feel like winnersact like winners.

Result with mini habits: While bloodsugar levels are independent of minihabits, the fact that they are energy-efficient, willpower-efficient, andempowering psychologically, preservesblood sugar as much as any goal/habitstrategy could. And if you're tired fromlow blood sugar, mini habits give youthe best chance to take action anyway.

How Mini Habits Expand Your Comfort Zone

Right now you have a comfort zone.Imagine it as a circle. You're mostcomfortable inside of this circle, butoutside of it are some of your desiredgoals. Outside the lines, you might seeyourself physically fit and weighing less;you might envision books you've writtenor books you'd like to read; a happierversion of you with fewer negativethoughts; a version of you who cooksmore meals at home; or whatever elseyou're interested in improving. These areoutside of your comfort circle becausethey require some discomfort to achieve

(due to straying from your basalganglia's current routines).

The common way people go about thischange is diving in and trying a“whatever it takes to succeed” strategy.This is like sprinting well outside ofyour comfort circle and fighting to staythere. That's when your subconsciousbrain says, this is interesting, but I'mreally uncomfortable with this hugechange, and it forces you back insideyour comfort circle when yourmotivation and willpower can no longersupport you out there.

Mini habits are like walking to the outeredge of your circle and taking one step

outside of the boundaries. You're in lesscomfortable territory here, but not bymuch, because you know taking one stepback will put you back inside yourcomfort circle. And maybe for the firstfew times, you will step right backinside your comfort circle (only meetingyour mini requirement). But when youcontinue to step outside the circle, yoursubconscious will get comfortable withit and your circle will expand (we’retalking about a mini habit forming here).This expansion, unlike the sprints in theprior example, can permanently changeyour boundaries, and it is the magicbullet of mini habits. Because while Ihope you get the urge to explore your

outer boundaries after you take that firststep outside, even if you don't, you willeventually form a comfortable habit oftaking that first step into a new behavior.This serves as the best possiblefoundation for further steps andpersonal growth in that area.

In the case of push-ups, the common minihabit is to do one every day. This smallstep creates a much broader effect thanyou'd think, because not only will youbecome comfortable with the idea ofdoing one push-up, you'll also be morecomfortable with push-ups in generaland with doing them every day. This isgoing to make scaling up a breeze.Really. And this is the absolute worst

case scenario of the Mini Habits system(in that you never do extra).

Chances are that you will do extrasometimes. And the reason relates tobasic physics. Newton's first law statesthat...

1. An object that is at rest will stay atrest unless an external force acts upon it.

2. An object that is in motion will notchange its velocity unless an externalforce acts upon it.

Can you see how this relates? Once youtake that first step, you are officially inmotion. You will find as I have, and asNewton's law suggests (for physics

anyway), that once you get started it isalmost as hard to stop as it is to keepgoing. Add to this that nothing is moremotivating and inspiring than seeingyourself take action. Put it together andwe get a new equation:

One small step + desired behavior =high probability of further steps

The Two Moments Of Resistance

I remember living in Virginia with a cat.When it snowed, we naturally wanted tosee how our indoor cat liked the snow.Cats don't like water, but do they likefluffy, frozen water? Nope.

First attempt: We walked out into theyard and tossed her into the snow.Failure. She would stand theremotionless and confused for threeseconds, and quickly race back inside indisapproval.

Second attempt (later day): We placedher on the outskirts of the snow. Success!

She actually walked around in it andexplored some.

Your brain is just another cat in thesnow, and you can quote me on thatbecause I love out of context quotes.Spring massive changes on it and it willrun back to its comfortable routines. Butintroduce changes gently and in smalldoses, and it just might be curious (notscared) to explore them more.

Your brain is programmed to resistchange, but most of that resistance comesat two particular moments.

Resistance Before ActionThink of yourself as a ball resting on atrack, or as Newton's law states, “an

object that is at rest.” Motivationaltechniques insist that you get motivatedbefore you move, but isn't it easier justto move forward one centimeter and letmomentum help you out? Yes, yes, it'smuch easier! Move yourself slightlyforward to get rolling. Once you'rerolling, the equation changes to a morefavorable physics formula: “an objectthat is in motion will not change itsvelocity unless an external force actsupon it.”

We want to be in motion in the directionof our goals as much and as frequently aspossible. To do this, we need the firstaction to be really easy, because that isthe first wall of resistance in any task.

Starting is the hardest part, but thatdoesn't mean it has to be hard to start.“Hardest” is relative.

When the first action is just a nudge,initial resistance shrinks. Once you takeaction, there is a second wave ofresistance. The strength of this second“wave” depends on how much of animpact your first step had (whichvaries).

Resistance To Do MoreThe Mini Habits strategy addresses thefirst instance of internal resistance byrequiring small steps to start and bymaking the total requirement too easy tofail. It keeps you from getting

overwhelmed and racing back to yourold routines (like a cat in the snow).

But once you start, there's another waveof resistance. In my experience, takingthat first step often completely shattersthis second level of resistance,especially once you have had somepractice. But starting out, it was FARless frequent. Can you guess why? Thinkabout the brain.

This resistance isn't a mystery. It's asubconscious conflict with my typicalbehavior. The basal ganglia can befooled into not resisting the first step, butit still knows what it wants when youattempt to do more. So, when the first

step isn't enough to break the resistance,you can take another. The basal gangliadoesn't care to “defend” against smallsteps, only drastic changes. By changingslowly and taking it one step at a time,you're playing by your own brain's rules.

So when I kept setting mini goals in theone push-up challenge, my braintolerated it. But once I thought aboutdoing even a 10-minute chunk, my brainsaid, “No, absolutely not. Play videogames, young man. You're grounded.” SoI said, “But can I just get the exercisemat out?” and it said “Yes.” You knowthe rest.

If you're ever in a situation where you'd

like to do more than your minimumrequirement, simply continue to usesmall steps (if necessary). But do notcome to expect this every time. Yourrequirement is small for all of thereasons we're discussing! You don'twant to jeopardize your long-termsuccess for a short-term gain. I don'twant to scare you into doing too littleeither, so I'll just say this: if yourrequirement is small on paper and inyour mind, you're fine.

Now, let's take a closer look at how minihabits work in the moment.

Mini Habits In The Moment

We just talked about the two occasionsthat we meet resistance (before andduring a task or project). Now I want todiscuss both common forms ofresistance—mental and physical.

Motivation can't overcome resistanceconsistently. It is the sometimes solution.The slogan for motivation should be thequote from the movie Anchorman: 60%of the time, it works every time.

It isn't just motivation though—usingwillpower recklessly is equallyineffective. Smart willpowermanagement is key to personal

development as smart moneymanagement is key to financial success.People working normal, relatively low-paying jobs have becomes millionairesthrough smart money management whilesuper athletes making millions of dollarsevery year have gone bankrupt. If youdon't plan your action strategy out, you'llflip-flop between poor willpower andmotivation strategies, and end upfrustrated.

Here's how mini habits overcome mentaland physical barriers. I'll use exercise asthe example, since it is such a commondesire.

Scenario #1: You have energy to

exercise, but don't want to do it(mental barrier).

Since we're going to skip motivation,we're left with using willpower. Butinstead of saying you have to do a fullworkout, we'll just say that you HAVE todo one push-up. It's required. As youhave energy in this scenario, this isn't abig deal. And once you start, you'regoing to find the motivation kick in mostof the time.

You don't want to exercise right now inthis scenario, but you do want toexercise generally in life. These areconflicting desires between presentmoment feelings and your life values.

When you do that first push-up, your lifevalues will often inspire you andovertake your prior hesitation. If not, youmay have to set a few more micro-goalslike I did in the first One Push-upChallenge, but as you lead yourselfalong, your mind will adjust to what thebody is doing. And each small step youtake will make your long-term healthyperspective more appealing.

In the willpower section, we saw howwillpower depends greatly on theperception of the difficulty of the task,and when you start “stupid small,” theperceived difficulty and willpower costdrop drastically. Once you take the firststep, your brain is forced to calculate the

true difficulty of what a full workoutwould be like, instead of a biased, lazybrain projecting it to be torturous! Ifyou've ever found yourself thinking itwasn't so bad after a workout or trying anew experience, you're already familiarwith this phenomenon.

Now what if you go overboard withwillpower even after starting small, andburn yourself out? This is the situationthat life coaches are terrified of... whatif you simply don't have the energy to doit? What if you have a headache? WhileI'm not promising this as a panacea forall action-stopping ailments, I dobelieve it is the single best action-basedstrategy—if anything can work, it's this.

Scenario #2: You don't physically feellike exercising because you're tired(physical barrier).

We think of tiredness as a physicalbarrier, but it's also a mental barrier.Having no energy usually means youhave zero motivation. I've overcome thisexact scenario countless times with minihabits. For example, more than 1,000words of this book were written while Ihad a headache. Not just that, but I wastired and wanted to go to sleep. I wascompletely unmotivated to write, hadvery little energy, and I did my 50 wordsanyway (which grew into 1,000somehow).

In many ways, it's harder not to do asingle push-up than to do one. Thechallenge is so easy that your prideenters the equation: I may be stubbornand exhausted right now, but come on, Ican do that. I encourage you tofrequently remind yourself of theabsurdity of not being able to meet yourmini habit requirement(s).

I was productive with a headachebecause I started small. It seemedliterally impossible at first based onhow I felt. And in the past, there was noway I would even attempt to write inthose circumstances with such a greatexcuse. I would have cut my losses andgave the standard promise to myself to

do it later. (As I age, I realize that nowis yesterday's later, and that later is abad plan.) It was the perfect stormthough—headache, late at night, anddead tired. I swear my bed was givingme pick-up lines.

“Your REM cycle is beautiful, Stephen,”it said. My glazed eyes gazed lustfully atthe warm covers, and I replied, “In aminute, honey.”

My requirement was so easy that Idecided to take a minute to meet it andthen quit. Instead, I wrote 1,000 words; Iwas astonished. It was one of thosemoments when I realized how powerfulthis life strategy is.

Can you see how mini habits can makeyou feel unstoppable? Can you see whyI'm confident that mini habits can helpnearly anyone add good habits? If I canperform in those circumstances—when Ihave weak willpower—then thisstrategy is a good one. The basis of thisstrategy rests not on my uniqueexperience, but on the science ofwillpower. My experience coincideswith the science. Mini habits aredesigned for minimum willpowerexertion and maximum momentum—theperfect scenario.

Fitting Mini Habits Into Your LifeAre you busy? Do you frequently feeloverwhelmed with everything you want

and must do? A concern you should havewith any system is how it fits into yourlife. Many habit books (wisely)recommend that you only pursue onehabit at a time. This is due to our limitedwillpower being unable to handle toomany habits at once. But who wants todedicate six months to one area of theirlife and ignore the other things they wantto improve? Habits are so valuable thatit would be worth it, but it's frustratingto only focus on writing when you wantto get in great shape too. This tensionbetween your current focus and the otherareas you want to improve can derailyou. This is a huge, largely ignoredproblem that has been without a

solution... until now.

Mini habits are so small and willpower-efficient, that you can have multiplehabits at once. Even busy andoverwhelmed people can succeed withmultiple mini habits. Look at mini habitsas your day's foundation—these arethings you MUST get done, but they onlytake a few minutes total to do. After that,you can do anything you want, whetherit's “bonus reps” or other activities. It'scompletely flexible to fit your currentlifestyle, but it's the crowbar of personaldevelopment, because it can leverage aninitially small habit in your life intosomething much bigger.

The Mini Habits Difference

“Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while

defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.” ― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

What makes Mini Habits different from

every other system out there claiming tochange your life? How can this systemimprove habit development and personalgrowth over traditional methods? Theseare fair questions to ask, so here are theanswers.

Mini Habits Can Compete With Your Existing Habits

Studies on people attempting to changeexisting habits have found discouragingresults.24 It turns out that once a habitgets strong enough, even the strongestintentions have a tough time turning itaround. In the context of a day, you'll domany more habitual behaviors than itseems, and these habits can interferewith your attempts to add in a newhealthy habit.

Where Mini Habits trounces other habitprograms is in competitiveness. Whenyou attempt to introduce a new behavior,

it's like trying to enter a weight-liftingcompetition without training. There is aton of competition there already, andeven worse, the competition is proven,experienced, and stronger than you. Mosthabit programs go wrong here. Theyconvince you that you can compete head-to-head with these stronger habits rightaway. (Sorry, I've got $400 riding onsmoking and watching TV.) They tell youto introduce a huge change like goingfrom not writing much at all to 2,000words per day, or being on the couch toexercising for an hour every day. Theproblem with this is the cost inwillpower. It's a math equation thatdoesn't work out in your favor, unless

you already have a strong self-disciplinemuscle. If not, you'll suffer "burn out"(and I'll win $400).

The brain resists big changes. Have youever heard of people saying that you justneed to get your foot in the door foremployment opportunities? Mini habitsare that same concept, but instead ofgetting into a company, we're talkingabout your brain. I think of the prefrontalcortex as having a spending allowancebefore the automatic part takes over. Forevery task, the subconscious brain looksat what you're asking of it and chargesyou willpower to get into the controlroom. You're only allowed to ask for somuch manual control per day, but once

you're in, you're in. Mini habits are low-willpower Trojan horses that canleverage their easy access into thebrain’s control room into big results. Inoticed this when I did that first push-up.It was the same physical action for how Istarted every workout, but I didn't feelthe burden of a workout because I didn'task my brain for the whole thing.

Small Steps & Willpower Are A Winning Team

The perfect team in personaldevelopment is small steps andwillpower. As long as you have enoughwillpower for an action, you can takethat action. Small steps require little tono willpower. So it's like havingunlimited willpower. You can getyourself to do just about anything if youguide yourself along in super smallsteps. Try it.

If you resist walking up to a girl to askher out, decide to move your left footforward, and then your right foot, in her

direction. You'll get there, and she'll askyou why you were “walking so funny.”ICEBREAKER.

Live update example: After 3 hours ofbasketball today, I was exhausted. Mybrain and body told me there was noway I could write. I was falling asleep. Ihad no willpower. But I aimed for 50words, which was too small to resist,and once again I'm well beyond mytarget now (and awake). Many timeswhen you're tired, engaging your mind orbody will wake you up.

Other Methods Will Tell You It's Ok To Let Up Too Soon

The common myth is that you canestablish a habit in 21 or 30 days. Somebooks are wholly based around this falseconcept. The truth is a bit uglier andharder to predict—18 to 254 days untilhabit formation, depending on the habitand the person.

Mini habits don't have a specific enddate, because we don't know how long itwill take to form the habit. Instead, we'lllook for signs that the behavior is habit.If your experience is like mine, you

could end up developing a bigger habitthan you planned. My mini habit ofwriting 50 words a day has resulted inwriting more like 2,000 words per day(though not every day).

Mini Habits Increase Your Self-efficacy

Self-efficacy isn't a term you hear muchunless you read behavioral sciencestudies. Self-efficacy is your belief inyour ability to influence an outcome. In atwo-year randomized trial, baseline self-efficacy was shown to have a significantimpact on exercise adoption andmaintenance.25 This applies to peoplewho want to exercise as well as thosewho need to exercise for medicalpurposes (of course, we all shouldexercise to stay healthy). As researchersnote in their review, “patient compliancewith exercise prescriptions is more

likely to be successful if exercise self-efficacy is assessed and enhanced.”26

Self-efficacy helps us achieve goals andcreate habits, but Psychologist AlbertBandura clarifies that “Expectationalone will not produce desiredperformance if the componentcapabilities are lacking.”27 Believing inyourself isn’t enough. Lacking thebaseline self-efficacy required forsuccess, however, is extremely commonin people who suffer from depression,weak willpower, and repeated failures.If you expect to fail, positive results arehard to come by.

Mini Habits are a self-efficacy-

generating machine, and importantly,you can get started successfully withzero self-efficacy. Your daily successeswill train you to have high self-efficacy.How can you not believe in your abilityto do one push-up per day? You can do itin between these two sentences. And thisamounts to strengthening your self-efficacy through practice. Mini habitsdouble as training for believing inyourself.

Remember, your brain latches on to anyrepetition you throw at it. So a problemmany people develop is an expectationof failing to reach their goals. Over time,this crushes their self-efficacy becauseit's hard to believe that next time will be

different (especially if you're using thesame strategy that failed last time). Ifyou've been feeling hopeless, this isexactly what has happened to you.But...you CAN do it. I'm not beingmotivational; I'm being logical. You canliterally make positive progress in yourlife. To think otherwise is irrationalnonsense, and it comes from trainingyourself to believe you can't.

Mini habits are the perfect way to startover. No longer will you be intimidatedby massive goals. No longer will you beattacked with feelings of guilt andinadequacy for falling short. No, thistime you're going to be succeeding on adaily basis. The victories may be small,

but one small victory to a defeated mindis a big victory.

Right now, you might be wondering,"How can one push-up a day or writing50 words a day help me? That's notenough progress to matter."

First, that's wrong—when any smallbehavior becomes a habit, it matters. Alot. A habit is the strongest behavioralfoundation a human can have. It's betterto have the habit of one push-up per daythan to do 30 push-ups every once in awhile. Only habits can be built strongerand higher.

Also, you're free and encouraged toexceed your target mark—I blow my

targets out of the water on a daily basisnow. But it's only because I MUST writea measly 50 words a day that I aminclined to write 2,000. Before this, Ididn't write at all on some days. It wasmy ambition to write a lot that made mewrite very little. Now I write at least 3xas much as before. It's because I'm nolonger intimidated to start. I love mysafety net, too. I can call the day asuccess if I take a few minutes to write50 words—this is so empowering.

Many times, I have planned to “justwrite my 50” and ended up writing3,000 words. As I mentioned earlier, Ionce wrote 1,000 words with aheadache and no energy. I felt like

Superman after doing that. I looked backon the times I was completely healthyand energetic but wasted time, and thensaw what I did with a headache and noenergy, and got even more excited toshare this book with the world.

Mini Habits Give You Autonomy

In a 2012 job satisfaction survey of 411people, 65% of American and Canadianrespondents said they were unsatisfiedor somewhat unsatisfied with theirjobs.28 I think it's partly because of thetraditional management philosophy thataims to control employees rather thanenable them. Other surveys have foundautonomy, or the feeling that you havecontrol and can make decisions, is aprimary factor in job satisfaction. ADenmark survey conducted by TheEuropean Working ConditionsObservatory found that “Almost 90% of

male employees and almost 85% offemale employees with high job decisionlatitude are satisfied to a high degree,while only about 56% of those with lowjob decision latitude report a highdegree of job satisfaction.”29 This is aspecific example of a universal truth—when a person feels controlled, they shutdown. People hate it. Perhaps this isbecause autonomy is strongly associatedwith freedom.

This is the downfall of many self-helpbooks. They'll say that you have to sweatblood to get what you want in life. Well,isn't sweating blood a sign that a part ofyou really doesn't like it? Wouldn’t yourather treat yourself well in the process

of changing into a better person?

The other extreme of self-help booksincludes fluffy, motivational BS, andother non-threatening prose to make youfeel good. You might feel motivatedtemporarily, but as we've established,relying on feelings and motivationdoesn't work in the long run.

In your journey, you're going to love theweightlessness of mini habits. But this isnot a pushover system without structure.It's not a vapid attempt to get youpsyched up. You'll set strict daily orweekly requirements for yourself, butthey're so easy that your subconsciouswon't feel controlled by your plans

(important!). Then, after you meet yoursmall requirement, you're free to dowhat you want. Without guilt, andwithout an overbearing burden of heavygoals, you're free to explore thesehealthy behaviors. It makes the processmore fun too, and that is a scientificallyrelevant benefit!

One study found that when peopleperceived tasks and decisions to be fun(as opposed to tedious, boring, ordifficult), they had strongerpersistence.30 Researchers in this studyalso noted the powerful impact ofautonomy, which you’ll notice is a keycomponent of mini habits. After yourmini habits, you’re free to do what you

want. Autonomy appears to work bymeans of activating our intrinsicmotivation. Examples they mentioned inwhich increased autonomy gave betterresults (each supported by their ownstudy) are morbidly obese people losingweight, smokers quitting, and diabeticscontrolling their blood glucose levels.31

Mini Habits Marry The Abstract & Concrete

The two types of goals are abstract andconcrete. An abstract goal is “I want tobe rich;” a concrete goal is “I want tomake $15 by selling lemonade at 3PMtoday.” Most people stronglyrecommend that you aim for concretegoals, but it is important to also knowyour abstract life goals and values (as Ihave written about before on DeepExistence). Abstract thinking helps withabstract goals, but can hinder the self-regulation required for concrete goals.

A study by Labroo and Patrick showed

the potential effect moods can have onour thinking.32 The experiments involvedvarious mood manipulation techniques(i.e. asking people to “think of thebest/worst day of their life”), and thentests to measure abstract thought abilityor preference. They concluded from thestudy's five experiments that happinesscaused people to think abstractly, whichhelps us see the big picture, but cancreate a challenge for pursuing goalsrequiring concrete thinking.

Another problem is seen from a studyby Ayelet Fishbach and Ravi Dhar; itsuggests early satisfaction or a highexpectation of success can make us feelas if we've already succeeded.33 Dieters

were split into two groups. Theresearchers reminded only one group oftheir dieting progress, and then offeredboth groups a reward choice—an appleor a chocolate bar. Of the groupreminded of their progress, 85% chosethe chocolate bar compared to 58% ofthe other group, suggesting an “I deservea reward” mentality.

A primary benefit of mini habits is beingable to do them no matter how you feel,including that sense of pre-goalsatisfaction that tends to disruptprogress. Because the requirement is sosmall, there is no valid excuse—notfrom happiness or lethargy—to skip it.

Happiness decreases your ability toperform concrete goals, but since theconcrete part of mini habits is, forexample, just one push-up, it's still easyto do while in an abstract state of mind.It's so small that it requires very littlemental energy and attention. And sincehappiness increases performance andfocus on abstract goals, after yourconcrete goal, you can rely on yourabstract goal of “being fit” to make youwant to exercise more.

As I've had success with mini habits,I've been happier, and it does makeconcrete mini habits slightly moredifficult to achieve (still easy). But onceI start on a mini habit, the relevant

abstract goals of writing more, readingmore, or getting in great shape are easierto pursue.

Because mini habits empower progresson abstract and concrete goals, peoplewho are generally stronger in one or theother can find success. Remember whenin the One Push-up Challenge I had to setmultiple goals to complete 15 push-ups?I had to rely on concrete, tiny goals tofinish the workout. This flexibility isimportant for consistency because of thepsychological changes we experience ona daily basis. It's being prepared for allpossible situations and setbacks. There'salmost no situation that will cause acomplete failure to meet your mini

habits, but there are many scenarioswhere you'll find yourself exceedingyour mini habits. The only time I'vefailed (just one) of my three mini habitswas when I forgot to read and fell asleepfor the night. Mini habits are perfectlysuited for any mood or situation. You canbe happy and motivated, tired anddepressed, or even sick, and stillcomplete your mini habits and possiblymore.

Mini Habits Destroy Fear, Doubt, Intimidation, & Hesitation

These things are best conquered byaction. Taking the first step kills fearover time, if not immediately. I'm nolonger intimidated to write. I no longerhave guilt about not reading enough.Going to the gym is not daunting now—it's fun. Fear can't exist if you'veexperienced something and it wasn'tscary.

Mini habits compel you to take that firststep, because it's so easy. And even ifyou step back into your safe zone right

after that, you're stepping out againtomorrow. Eventually, you're going totake a second step too. Mini habitsexpose you to your doubts and fears in away that feels safe and empowering.You'll see that exercise isn't so hard andyou can do it. You'll see that dailywriting is easy and writer’s block is aself-fulfilling prophecy. You'll startreading more books. You'll have acleaner home. Whatever you've beenwanting to do will become possible.

Mini Habits Create Insane Bonus Effects Of Increased Mindfulness & Willpower

One of the most important skills a personcan develop is mindfulness, which isbeing aware of what you think and do.Being mindful is the difference betweenliving purposefully and going through themotions.

If your mini habit is to drink one glass ofwater per day, you'll be more mindful ofhow much water you drink in general.When you have to monitor somethingevery day, however small, it climbs theladder of your consciousness and you'll

think about it even after you've met therequirement. I'm so mindful of mywriting now because of my mini habitthat I think about opportunities to writeall day long. You will simultaneouslyand naturally develop a mindfulnesshabit, which will help with all futurehabit modification (including badhabits).

The next bonus is a willpower increase.Since willpower needs endurance morethan raw power, frequent repetition ofsmall tasks is the ideal way to“exercise” the willpower muscle. Thestronger your willpower, the greatermastery you'll have over your body.Many people are slaves to their bodies,

responding to every feeling and whim.They believe they can't do things if theydon't want to do them at the time. Addingmini habits is a great way to fix thismindset while building willpower.

Enough talk. Let’s move to action. Thenext chapter will show you how tocreate mini habits to last a lifetime.

Mini Habits – Eight Small Steps To Big

Change

“If you don't execute your ideas, they die.” — Roger von

Oech

The real fun begins now. This is the

step-by-step application guide to chooseand implement your own mini habits. Irecommend that you get a pad and pennow to go through these and write downyour plans and strategy.

Step 1: Choose Your Mini Habits & Habit Plan

Make a quick list of habits you'd like tohave at some point. The important oneswill come to mind quickly. This will beyour reference list for step one. Visitminihabits.com for ideas.

Note: habit ideas from minihabits.comare already in minified form—you canwrite down these mini habits now aslong as you know the larger habit itrepresents. One push-up could stand forgeneral fitness or for a larger push-upgoal of 100 push-ups daily. Otherwise,write down full-size habits for now.

It's tough to pursue one habit when youhave a few more habits you're anxious tocreate. It takes a lot of discipline toignore everything else for a few monthsin order to solidly develop one habit. It'sworth the sacrifice to build one habitthat can last a lifetime, but it remains achallenge.

Good news, everyone. As I’ve alludedto already, you can build multiple minihabits at once! This is due to their smallwillpower cost and flexibility. Their“size” will vary, though—both in initialdifficulty and how much extra you’relikely to do. I have written far morebonus words than I've read bonus pages.Writing is a priority for me, so it's

naturally where I put in the most effort.That said, I also read much more than Ipreviously did, and on some days, I readmuch more than I write. You're going tolove this flexibility, because it allowsfor parties, traveling, and other scheduleaberrations.

Lately, I have been pursuing three minihabits with great success. It’s four if youcount exercise, but that’s already a habit—I go to the gym 3x a week. I still trackit weekly, but it is no longer a willpowerchallenge. My brain is more likely toencourage exercise than resist it now.

I would not recommend that you pursueany more than four mini habits at a time

(and four might be too much). Whilethese habits are individually easy toaccomplish, the larger the quantity, themore your focus will be dividedamongst them and the more likely you'llneglect or forget one of them. Not onlythat, but imagine having to meet 100 tinyrequirements every day. Yikes! There isa willpower cost for having to do acertain number of things every day. Twoor three mini habits will be the sweetspot for many people.

Here are the habit plans to choosefrom...

One Week Flexible Plan (recommended)

In this plan, you start with one habit anduse the Mini Habits system for oneweek. Then you evaluate and choose along-term plan.

Evaluation at one week: Do you feelburnt out? Do you find yourself easilysurpassing your requirement every day?Are you crushing it and craving moregood habits? Depending on howchallenging it is for you, you can staywith one or add more. Since not allhabits are of equal difficulty, defining aset number that works for everyone isn'tpossible or wise. Also keep in mind thatthe more mini habits you have, the lesslikely you are to overachieve in them.

Finally, consider what your mostdifficult day would be like. Maybeyou're driving all day on the road orpreparing for a big party—can youcomplete your mini habits then? Don'timagine the easiest days; imagine thehardest days. If you can do something onthe day you're tired, stressed, and verybusy, you can do it every day.

Now, if you feel like your willpowercan handle an extra mini habit (or two),add it! Notice that I didn't mention yourschedule, because your mini habitsshould take you less than ten minutescombined to complete (if you don’tdecide to do extra). Everyone has tenminutes to spare for something

important.

The one-week flexible plan isrecommended for people who want totry the Mini Habits system, but aren'tsure yet what's best for them. This planwill automatically turn into one of theother plans.

Warning: It's important to mark the one-week mark on your calendar to make afirm decision that day about your futureplans. Don't allow a gap!

The Single Mini PlanDo you want to write consistently morethan anything? Do you really want to getserious about your fitness? Do you wantto dedicate yourself to daily reading?

This single mini plan places all of yourfocus on one habit; it comes with a veryhigh success rate. I started off doing thiswith the One Push-up Challenge, inwhich I was required to do at least onepush-up every day. If your willpower isas weak as mine was or if you'redepressed, one might be all you canhandle. You've got to start somewhere!

This is recommended for people whohave a single goal that dwarfs the othersin importance right now. It's also a goodoption for those with very weak selfcontrol to help them improve it.Remember, you can always add moremini habits, but it's more painful to haveto drop one.

Multiple Mini PlanThis is my current strategy and the mostadvanced one, but that doesn't mean it'stoo difficult for a beginner to havesuccess with. I have three mini habits,but you'll see that two of them arepractically the same thing: I write atleast 50 words for anything, write atleast 50 words toward a book, and readat least two pages of a book every day.This is in addition to my now regular-sized habit of working out at the gym 3times a week (which evolved from theOne Push-up Challenge). Even withthree distinct daily goals, I can completemy entire list easily in less than tenminutes if needed (and never fail).

If you really want to try four or moremini habits at once starting out, be myguest. It could work, but I don't want it tospoil this great system for you if it's toomuch for you to consistently complete.While each mini habit is super small, ittakes some willpower and discipline todo them all every day. And Mini Habitsaims for 100% success, not 95%. If youfail at just one mini habit, you won'thave the feeling of total success, whichis important for maintaining high self-efficacy.

Your ideal quantity of mini habits islargely determined by how difficult eachone is for you. Drinking water is easierfor most people than a fitness habit

(even when minified). Habits thatinvolve having to drive somewhere are asignificantly more difficult option,especially because it depends onavailability, location, etc. Mine are easybecause I can bring my laptop with meeverywhere. Previously, I'd think, Iguess I can't write because I'm goingon vacation for 2 days. Not anymore!Now I can be productive on vacation too(I know what you're thinking, but I canjust meet the minimum if I want to relaxinstead).

The multiple mini plan is recommendedfor people who have several good habitsthey're eager to develop or would feelunsatisfied to only develop one at a time.

If you're not sure which plan is best foryou, choose the flexible plan and pickone habit for now that you'd most like toform. Don't be afraid to name the fullamount of what you want in this step(e.g. exercising 5x a week consistently).

At this point, you should have a habitplan, and full-sized habits to pursue.They may be related to fitness, writing,reading, drinking water, habitualgratefulness, meditating, programming,etc. Now we're going to minify them!

Make Your Habits “Stupid Small” The reason we tend to resist givingourselves small steps has to do withsocietal norms, a habit of thinking

bigger, and pride. I can do 20 push-upseasily, a person will think, so there's noneed to say I'll do just one. But thisthinking only takes into account one typeof strength (physical). Every possibleaction—such as 20 push-ups—has awillpower requirement attached to it. Ifyou're motivated, full of energy, and inshape, 20 push-ups might not "cost" youmuch willpower. But when you're a littlebit tired already and not feeling up to it,not only will you have less willpower,but the activity will “cost” more of it! Amistake people make when setting goalsis not taking into account that theirmotivation and energy levels are goingto fluctuate dramatically. They'll assume

that their current state of mind andenergy can be preserved or reactivatedwhen the time comes to act. What ensuesis a losing struggle against a brain thatdoesn't want to change (in that way). Butthis time, we're going to trick our brainand win the willpower game.

My rule of thumb is to minify my desiredhabit until it sounds stupid. Whensomething sounds “stupid small,” yourbrain sees it as nonthreatening. Theseare examples that sound stupid small tomost people:

One push-up a day? You're joking!

Get rid of one possession every day?Worthless!

Write 50 words a day? You'll neverpublish anything!

A skill you'll pick up as you practicemini habits is finding creative ways tomake your actions smaller and smaller ifyou feel resistance. If you're resistingyour single push-up today—say you haveto get in push-up position, or easier, thatyou have to lie on your stomach on thefloor. If your mini habit is to drink oneglass of water every day, you can makeit smaller by deciding to fill a glass withwater, or one step further, pick up aglass. If your mini habit is writing 50words a day and you're resisting, openup your word processor and write oneword. You won't need to do this most of

the time as your mini habits are already“stupid small,” but remember you havethis in your arsenal for times of extremeresistance.

Too small does not exist in regards tomini habits. If you're unsure, go with thesmaller option. For ideas of mini habitsto implement, visit minihabits.com.

This is the key of the Mini Habitssystem. You're going to repeat this toosmall to fail action every day.

Just as important as making your minihabit small is making your thoughtssmall too. You must embrace this mini-requirement as if it is a full goal. Thismeans if you meet the tiny requirement,

you're successful for the day. If you cando that, you will get the “big” results youdesire.

What To Do With Weekly Mini HabitsI can understand that some things aren'tsuitable for a daily plan. Exercise issomething that many people will want todo 3-5 times a week. Who would wantto drive to the gym seven days a week ifthey're only working out three days aweek?

Weekly habits will take longer to forminto habit, but they are consistent enoughfor the brain to recognize as a pattern.So if you really want to set a weeklymini habit, try it and see how it works

for you. We can do something creativewith weekly habits, however, totransform them into a daily requirement.If you want to drive to the gym weekly,as an example, you can set a hybrid minihabit.

A hybrid mini habit is when you giveyourself a choice between two options(do A or B). I'm not overly fond ofhybrid mini habits because they add tothe willpower cost (making decisionsalso uses willpower), but they are thebest option in some cases. And I like thatthey have you do something every day.

Hybrid mini habit examples:

• Drive to the gym OR dance for the

duration of one song

• Drive to the gym OR do one push-up

• Drive to the gym OR jog for oneminute

With this example, on off days, you havea replacement activity. Won't people justchoose the easy one every day? First, Ithink you might be surprised at whatyou'll do without any additionalrequirements. Granting yourself freedomin a smart way is very empowering. Andyou want to be fit, right? Second, themini habit here is just to drive to thegym. If you want to, you can simplydrive back home. It sounds crazy, but Imust stress the importance of giving

yourself a way out of a big,overwhelming 45-minute workout. Yoursubconscious brain is smart enough toknow when a goal on paper isn't yourreal goal. And it's when we forceourselves into an intimidatingcommitment that our slow-changingbrain rebels.

For a hybrid plans, I recommend startingwith no strings attached. Just see howoften you decide to go to the gym. If younever seem to choose the gym, then youcan start by requiring one gym day perweek. Later, you can scale up to twodays required per week. Take your timewith this though. Don't be in a rush tochange, because your brain can't and

won't change quickly. It will take timeanyway, so easing yourself into it is themost logical method.

Alright, now check over your list:

• Do you have a mini habit plan? Didyou choose flexible, single, ormultiple?

• Are your mini habits “stupid small”?Say them out loud. If you laugh, theypass.

• Is everything written down on paper?Scrap paper is fine.

If so, great! On to step two.

Step 2: Use The Why Drill On Each Mini Habit

Everyone prefers to be healthy, but noteveryone is willing to put in the workrequired to be optimally healthy. Thereare benefits of eating fast food andwatching movies all day too. If yourproblem has been that you want to dothings, but struggle to do them, then youhave the right book.

The best way to know if the habits areworth the effort starts by identifying thesource. The best habit ideas are sourcedstraight from your life values. We're notlooking for ideas that come from peer

pressure and others' expectations foryou. If you try to change based onanother person or society's opinion, Ithink you know what will happen, but I'llsay it anyway: massive internalresistance.

Using The Why Drill To Get To The SourceDrills drill. That's what they do. And Icall the following the “why drill”because the simple question “why?” isthe best way to drill down to the core ofanything.

Once you've listed your habits, identifywhy you want them. But don't stop there.Ask why again. Continue to ask why

until it becomes circular and repetitive,which means that you've found the core.Honest answers are absolutely necessaryfor this to work, so dig deep. There willbe more than one answer to thesequestions, so try to pick the mostrelevant ones. Here are two real andhonest examples of mine. One is a greatchoice to make habit and the other ishighly questionable.

I want to write every day. Why?

Because writing is my passion. Why?

Because it's my favorite way to expressmyself and tell stories. I can connectwith and help people through writing,and I enjoy the process. Why does that

matter?

Those things make me feel alive andhappy. Why?

Because writing is clearly something Ivalue and treasure in life. Next example:

I want to get up at 6 AM daily. Why?

Because it's what successful peopleseem to do, and it's embarrassing to getup later. Why?

Because I have the sense that society ingeneral and certain people I know lookdown on me for staying up and wakingup later.

In the second example, you can see that

the main reason for change is externalpressure. That said, getting up at 6 AMcould still make me happier. Because ofthe preconceived notions I have aboutwaking up late and early, it makes mefeel more successful and decreases mygeneral sense of guilt when I get upearlier. So it's not a throwaway, butwhen pitted against something likewriting (and I'm writing very late atnight right now), I'm not going to give itprecedence. By staying up late to write,I'm being true to my inner values, eventhough the world might not agree with it.It's ok if the world doesn't agree withyou—don't get bullied into a lifestylethat doesn't suit you.

Step 3: Define Your Habit Cues

The two common habit cues are time-based and activity-based. In a time-based cue, you'll say, “I'm going toexercise MWF at 3 PM.” In an activity-based cue, you'll say, “I'm going toexercise MWF 30 minutes after I takemy last bite at lunch.”

People with 9-5 jobs have verystructured schedules, so time-based cuestend to work well for them. Those whohave a lot of flexibility in their schedulemight benefit more from an activity-based cue that lets them keep a solid, yet

flexible schedule. Which cue you'll usedepends on your (desired) lifestyle.

Time-based schedules are rigid withlittle ambiguity (e.g. you start at 4 PMsharp). This helps you to get work doneand build discipline. The downside islack of flexibility—maybe you'll get aheadache at 4 PM when you're supposedto do something active. Life has a way ofthrowing off our schedules. And whenyou miss a cue and do the task late,you’ll hit that awkward stage where youdon't know whether to feel successful orguilty.

Activity-based are more flexible with abit more ambiguity. They help you build

structure into a typically structure-lesslife. The tricky part is in knowingprecisely when one activity ends and theother begins. If I am to start writingsomething after lunch at a restaurant, do Iget to settle in and check the mail beforeI start writing? Must I go straight to thecomputer? You may think, that doesn'tmatter, but it does, because as thepower of mini habits show us, littletasks can easily extend into bigger tasks.Suddenly you'll find yourself organizingyour entire desk and remember, oh yeah,I was supposed to be writing. Smallsteps get us started and allow us to buildmomentum towards a meaningful goal,but it works the other way too. If you

allow yourself small concessions, soonenough you'll find them growing againstyour will.

The question of time-based or activity-based cues isn't all that important. Theycan both work just fine. What isimportant is that you choose, and choosefirmly. Not making a decision here is abig mistake, but before you lock downyour choice, there is one more optionthat might surprise you. It is mypreferred choice for all of my currentmini habits.

Freedom-based, Non-specific Habit Cues (General Mini Habits)Traditional habit books will tell you

about the cue-behavior-reward structureof habits from studies, and then proceedto tell you the obvious next step—pickyour cue, behavior, and reward. Butwhat if you want to do something likethink more positively in general? Whatif you want to do something at varyingtimes? Mini habits open up a new realmof possibility here. The following isespecially relevant for flexibleschedules and general habits likegratefulness.

Mini habits are rooted in autonomy,freedom, and flexibility. The goal is toempower you to have constant success.We can apply this philosophy torestrictive habit cues by instead setting a

24-hour deadline with no specific cues.

Have you noticed that bad habits havemultiple cues, while everyone suggeststhat a good habit should have one cue?It's no wonder bad habits are so strong!They have sprawling roots tied to manydifferent cues in your life. That'sbecause bad habits grow naturallythrough repetition in variouscircumstances, while we grow goodhabits artificially with the “single cue-behavior-reward” formula. It's true thatif you only have a single cue, you willstill be more mindful of that behavior.For example, if you think two happythoughts at 2 PM every day, then you'llprobably think them more in general too.

But doing it at 2 PM every day can feelrestrictive and forced (depending onyour personality). In addition, when youset a specific time to do something, itcan feel wrong to do it outside of thattime. For people who have a morninghabit of writing, many of them won'tever write at other times of the day. Iwrite at any and all times of day—whatever fits my schedule best.

Another problem with specific cues istheir additional load on your willpower.When you have to run at some pointtoday, that's flexible. When you have torun at 3 PM, that's inflexible. Theadditional pressure to perform the taskon time increases willpower cost.

Traditional habits suggest you pair thistime-sensitive cue with a big task,making it even more difficult for you tosucceed. But for us, the total willpowerrequired even for “cue-triggered”actions will still be small because of themini size of the action. Therefore, minihabits are a better fit into the currentpopular model of “cue-behavior–reward” than traditionally-sized habitsare.

Note: I'm not saying that non-specificcues are always better; they're better forsome people and some habits. Eachhabit should be decided on individually.

A general habit is a habit with more than

one cue for action. Most of us alreadyhave general habits of eating,entertaining ourselves, mindlesslybrowsing the Internet, and so on. Due tothe staggering number of cues weexperience every day, there's somethingappealing about not choosing just onecue for a good habit.

The rigidity of having only one cue canhamper social opportunities andspontaneity. But with the dominant habittheories, having one cue is the onlyviable way to make something a habit.Having multiple cues would require toomuch willpower, and each cue wouldneed to develop individually, drawingout the process of becoming habit. That's

why mini habits are a game-changer.

A general mini habit requires you to doyour little requirement once per day, atyour leisure. I don't recommend midnightas the deadline, as this is also inflexible.I recommend that going to sleep for thenight signifies the end of your day. Thisgives you the greatest chance to succeedbecause you can squeeze in your minihabits at the last second. I realize howbad that sounds, but it serves animportant purpose in the early stages ofmini habits—nurturing your feeling ofconstant success, which builds your self-efficacy.

I did the One Push-up Challenge for a

few months. One of my embarrassinglycommon cues early on was right beforebed (the deadline). This is an indicatorof poor discipline because I failed to fitthe habit into my schedule during theday. But, instead of going to sleepdisappointed, I still went to sleep with awin (and usually, I'd get in some bonusreps too). When you go to sleep feelinglike a winner, especially if you do it formany days in a row, it creates an internaldesire to improve even more. You'veheard that success begets success, right?It's true. Successful people work harderthan depressed people because they'realready successful. Success ignitespassion and action. This is what mini

habits will do for you too. You'll feelsuccessful, which will make you want tosucceed more and more. I say this notjust as the author of this book and themind behind this system, but as its firstguinea pig. I've tried a lot of othersystems, and my mini habits results crushanything else I've tried.

Back to the one push-up story: after awhile of “stealing wins at the buzzer,” Iwanted to do better. I began to get mypush-ups in earlier. The timing stillvaried (different cues). This is why it'sok to meet the minimum just before bed.It encourages you to build your own self-discipline. True self-discipline is notwhen you have someone ordering you to

do push-ups, it's when you decide onyour own to do them. It's SELF-discipline.

Despite my great success in reading,writing, and exercising consistently, itwas weird, because I felt like a fraud. Ididn't have “habit cues.” All of thepopular habit books talk about them. Thescience said they were essential. All Ihad were daily requirements and aweekly exercise quota. This is supposedto be how people fail their habits, andyet I'm having wild success. Why?

The first thing I realized is that thesestudies test big, willpower-guzzlinggoals like going out for a morning run at

6 AM, doing 100 push-ups daily, orsticking with a workout program. Minihabits, I realized, are so different thatsome of these rules change.

Mini habits are too small to fail, evenwithout a cue.

You'll always have the ability to fit inyour habit right before bedtime (minihabits generally take about one minuteeach to do). And this nightly habit checkwill become a habit too, which iswonderful because it keeps you mindfulof your life. Did I meet my easyrequirements today? Yes. Excellent!*sleep*

So what happens when you have a habit

too small to fail that’s without cues? Thedevelopment of multiple habit cues.And this is really exciting. While I lovemorning routines in particular and maychoose to develop one, it's been great tohave a general habit of writing. Writingfor me resembles the structure of a badhabit. I'm sure I have specific cues (onecue I've noticed is after I eat something),but because I have multiple cues, itseems like I just do it randomly.

But wait just a second... if it can takemonths to form even one habit with asingle cue, it must take years to createmultiple cues! Nope. Mini habits areminuscule and easy, and remember thestudy earlier on habit-formation length?

It concluded that the difficulty of abehavior is a primary determinant ofhow long it takes to make it into ahabit.34 This means that mini habits canbecome habitual much faster thantraditional habits can. The caveat, ofcourse, is that when your goal is 50words and you write 2,000 each day, itmight take longer to make 2,000 words ahabit. But if you're crushing it to thatdegree, that's a great “problem” to have,right? And yes, if you don't have onespecific cue, your brain will take longerto make it habit. So if you've got tenhabits you want to add to your life andare going for speed, it will be faster toset single specific cues for your mini

habits. On the other hand, if you want toflexibly “weave” something into youridentity and schedule like I have withwriting, then make it a general MiniHabit.

A recap of cue options:

• General mini habits are done once perday.

• Time-cued mini habits are done at 3PM, 9:45PM, etc.

• Activity-cued mini habits are doneafter lunch, before work, whiledriving, after using the restroom, etc.

A Few More Details On My General Mini Habits Experience

Some people do their writing in themorning. I write at all times of the day.Writing has become a lifestyle habit forme. You know what happens to me now?I'll be watching a TV show and get theurge to write (a great, weird thing!). Butwhen I'm watching something with otherpeople, I don't get this urge, because it'sa different scenario. I react dynamicallyand naturally to situations. When a friendwas over for a couple of days, I didn'twrite as much, and that's exactly how Iwant to live. If that became a recurringissue that was making me unproductive, Icould adjust.

As you can see, this has some positiveimplications for fixing bad habits as

well. “Wild” bad habits growunintentionally, and grow everywhere.You'll have 98 cues to smoke a cigarette,53 cues to watch YouTube videos, and194 cues to browse the Internetmindlessly. It's possible to let your goodmini habits grow “wildly” like this. Likeplants competing for nutrients, your goodhabits can then crowd out your badhabits. You can see that writing nowcompetes with watching TV shows forme. This is less likely with specific-cuehabits, as they're tethered to just one cue.They can be very strong, don't get mewrong, but unless it shares a cue with abad habit, it will be isolated from it.

A word of caution: You want to be

deliberate about what habits you “letgrow” wildly. For example, somepeople can't relax now because they areworkaholics. The work habit gets soingrained into their identity thatretirement confuses and bores them.They want to work. I've decided that Iwant to write and write a lot for the restof my life, so I'm willing to let mywriting habit mesh into my identity(same for reading and exercise). But I'mnot sure I'd like the same type of habitfor bathing (once a day is fine). For that,I prefer a cued habit like showering onceI get out of bed. Sleep schedules andmeals might also be best structured so asto let the body get into a circadian and

dietary rhythm, respectively.

If you want something to become anencompassing part of your life—goodexamples include thinking positivethoughts, writing, being thankful,exercising/being active, giving to others,minimalist living, etc.—I recommendsetting no specific cue for your minihabit. Only give yourself a dailydeadline of doing it before you sleep forthe night.

If you want a behavior to have aspecific, carved out place in your life,set a specific cue for it. Some examplesinclude exercising on specific days,reading before bed, and writing in the

morning. Some people like to have theirlives very structured, so they mightchoose only specific cues. It's all up topreference. You can even choose acombination of “wild” and cued habits.

Decision-making In the MomentEspecially if you're choosing generalmini habits, understanding the decision-making process will help you to do themwhen necessary.

We have two states of mind whenmaking a decision. First, we weigh ouroptions, which is called the deliberativemindset. Then we commit to act, whichis called the implemental mindset.35

The goal is to move to the implemental

frame of mind (instead of getting stuck inthe deliberative frame of mind).

One advantage of cues is they cut out thedeliberative process and help you getmore quickly to an implemental state ofmind. This is highly appealing. Cues arethe key factor in what’s known asimplementation intentions, which arepredetermined decisions of exactly whenand how you'll do something.Implementation intentions are known toimprove goal success. A mini habit witha cue has an even greater chance ofsuccess because it does not require muchcommitment. It's so small that it's a “nobrainer.”

Mini habits can work without cues too,though; their minuscule size is whatelevates them above competingbehaviors. So while you'd need to gothrough the deliberative process withouthaving a cue, you should not get stuckwhen trying to decide whether or not todo one push-up or write 50 words. It'stoo easy to think too hard about it. If youever find yourself stalling, remindyourself how small your task is.

Now, write down your selected cues foreach mini habit. I like to keep all of mineunder the once per day at any timeumbrella. This keeps things simple.

Step 4: Create Your Reward Plan

If you're a prisoner hoping for parole,when do you think is the best time foryour parole hearing? I'll tell you. It'sright after the parole judge takes a foodbreak. A study found that judges ruledmore favorably for prisoners just after afood break (presumably, they were morewilling to listen).36 When you view thechart of parole grant rates, there is anobvious spike after each food break.Making a difficult decision like grantingparole is a part of ego depletion—thesame energy resource that determinesour willpower. And food is a proven

reward that can restore it.

What do you think would happen if youtried to make a new habit of stickingyour face in the dirt and eating some ofit? (Let's assume that you wanted tobuild this habit.) You couldn't do it. Theobvious reason is who would want to dothat? But the brain’s reason is there’s noreward. It's more like punishment. Yourbrain would be very adamant againstthis.

If you're not playing sports, exercise canfeel like a drag. Most people don't feellike running around in circles orclimbing a fake staircase; they don’t feellike pushing, pulling, and lifting various

heavy objects at the gym. It comes with afeeling of discomfort.

I can say from experience that going tothe gym is three times moreuncomfortable when you're out of shape.It feels like your muscles are saying,Hey, we were sleeping! After your hardworkout, you get home, look in themirror, and your reward is...sweat? Atthis point, your brain is probably askingyou where the real reward is.

There is a natural reward for the brainwhen you exercise. In anaerobicexercise, the brain releases feel-goodendorphins, also known as “runner'shigh.” Interestingly, weight-lifting causes

endorphin release too, but only if it isheavy and intense. Light or mediumintensity lifting won't trigger anendorphin release because it doesn'tcause the body to switch to an anaerobicstate. I like how writer Tom Scheve putsit:

“When your body crosses over from anaerobic state to an anaerobic state, it'ssuddenly operating without enoughoxygen to satisfy the muscles and cellsscreaming out for it. This is when the‘runner's high’ occurs.” 37

Think of the anaerobic state as a retailstore during the holiday season. Thebody isn't keeping up with its normal

operations, so it has to go into anothermode to meet increased demand.

Endorphins are a nice natural reward forthe brain, but they may not be enough ofa reward for some people, especially atfirst. As exercise can feel a bit likepunishment, you might need a biggerreward. They use exercise as punishmentin the military for a reason!

Exercise has significant primaryrewards of sculpted abs, feeling great,and being healthy, but these are delayedfrom the time you first exercise.Meanwhile, your brain wants cakeNOW! Cake is a sensory (or primary)reward because the sugar hits the taste

buds and activates the reward center inthe brain. Exercise though, offers mostlyabstract (secondary) rewards, likewalking on the beach with a great body,feeling satisfied with your effort, andother higher-level thinking. Secondaryrewards, as you might guess, take longerto “take hold” in the brain.

Reward AssociationIf exercise's endorphins and the promiseof eventual results do not sufficientlyreward your brain at first, you need tocall in back up. And because the worldis awesome, we don't have to play thehabits game fairly. What we can do isattach completely unrelated rewards tocertain behaviors. After some time, the

brain will associate the behavior withthe reward, and that's what we want!And later, the brain won't need the(attached) reward.

If you've ever wondered why so manyfoods include sugar, it might be becausesugar is mildly to moderately addicting.Pretty much anything that delivers areward to the brain can be addicting. Itisn't healthy to consume sugar in excess,but consuming small amounts of sugarfor the sake of continuing an importanthabit may be worth the calories.Moderation is the key here.

A creative way I like to reward my brainis with laughter, which releases feel-

good chemicals. I'll sometimes follow awriting session by watching the hilariousBad Lip Reading videos on YouTube.Just for fun, the next time someone seesyou watching a funny YouTube video,tell them you're training your brain. It'sscience!

The secret to building habits is liketeaching a kid to ride a bike. At first,you're letting the kid pedal as you'reholding on. But at some point, you let goand the child rides on without you. Justlike this, at first we offer the brain anextra reward after exercise, buteventually the sense of satisfaction andendorphins are enough for it to sustainthe behavior on its own. It learns to see

the value of these secondary rewards,which are more pleasing and strongerthan sugar-laden rewards in many ways,but it takes time.

Sensory (primary) rewards last as longas the experience lasts. But the feelingyou get from being in great shape, ordoing something positive for 98consecutive days stays with you. Rightnow I'm looking at a giant wall calendarfull of check marks that reminds me ofthe progress I've made. It sounds lame tolook at checks and feel good, but mybrain knows exactly what each of thosemarks means. In fact, if you want to behappier, one study shows thatcelebrating wins is the most effective

strategy for making us feel good aboutour lives.38 That’s quite the endorsementfor Mini Habits, which is based oncelebrating and leveraging small wins.

Reward StrategyIt's not all work in exchange forrewards, though. It's fun to live well andthere is satisfaction in developing agood habit. That means if you'reexercising, look in the mirror after a fewweeks and remind yourself how thatprogress came about. If you're writing,celebrate your beefed up word count.And even if you're only meeting theminimum requirements on these, think ofthe great habit you're forming to serve asa foundation for more.

But strategy matters too. If you're usingthe no cue strategy, then you can eitherseek rewards after you take action orstay conscious of how you feel andreward yourself when you think youneed it. Mini habits offer the perk of agreater sense of satisfaction thantraditional habits (i.e. a greatersecondary reward!). If you think a greataccomplishment feels good, know that itfeels even better when you did 95% of itas bonus work. Though when you do alot of bonus work, you might want toreward yourself to encourage thatbehavior.

Abstract rewards such as a sense ofsatisfaction are largely tied to your

mindset. This is why I emphasize thatyou celebrate your small successes.Success leads to more success, becausewe like the results and feelings ofsuccess. You’d do well to learn to lovedelayed gratification too. Theanticipation of a bigger reward later is aform of reward that can often conquerthe temptation to cash in on a smallerreward now. The more you practice andexperience delayed gratification, themore responsive you'll be to it!

My rule of thumb is to keep myselfhappy while doing this. I know when I'mnearing burnout, and that’s when I'll takea rewarding break.

Rewards Appear To Restore WillpowerRewards encourage repeat behavior, butdid you know that they also restore ourwillpower? Cognitive scientist ArtMarkman says, “When you stand in frontof that buffet table filled with desserts,seek out a friend and have a funconversation.” 39

It may seem like a puzzling suggestion,but rewards of all kinds may be a viableway to restore your willpower.

Based on Baumeister's “ego depletion”concept, multiple studies haveconcluded that people can overcome egodepletion by restoring glucose.40 Somescientists, however, wanted to put

another willpower restoration theory tothe test: rewards. Their theory was thatperhaps it is the reward from eatingsugar that restores willpower.41 Sugar isknown to activate the reward centers inthe brain.

They started with typical exercises todeplete willpower. Then, one groupswished a solution sweetened withartificial sweetener and spit it out(artificial sweeteners do not activate thebrain’s reward centers). The other groupswished with a sugary solution and spitit out (which activates reward centers oncontact with taste buds). The resultsshowed that the people who swishedwith artificial sweetener showed no

improvement in ego-depletion, but thosewho swished with sugar did (i.e. theirwillpower was restored to normallevels).42 Because glucose levels werenot restored, but willpower levels wererestored, it appears that at least somepart of willpower restoration comesfrom rewarding the brain. This is goodnews for people who want to loseweight, as it means that non-foodrewards may be effective in restoringwillpower.

So when Markman says to “seek out afriend and have a fun conversation,” he'stelling you to restore your willpowerwith a brain reward. Then you'll stand abetter chance against that chocolate

cheesecake (hey, I said better chance).Willpower is commonly associated withavoiding bad habits like this, but wealso use willpower to force ourselves todo good things, so rewards will help usstick with our good mini habits byencouraging further behavior andrestoring our willpower.

Step 5: Write Everything Down

Writing something down instantlyelevates it above all of your otherthoughts. One study found that allthoughts (positive or negative) heldgreater prominence in the mind whenwritten down on paper.43 The sameimpact has not been found for typing.You’ve got to hand write it to amplify it.

Here are some strategies for trackingyour progress. In whatever strategy youchoose, I recommend that you check offyour success before you go to sleep. Ifyou check off your task early in the day,

the sense of completion might make youfeel less motivated to do “bonus reps.”Also, it's a good habit to check it offbefore bed so that you don't forget.

The Big Calendar (Recommended)This is the strategy I use for tracking mymini habits. I use a large desk calendaron the wall in my room. I write my minihabits on a nearby dry erase board, andcheck off every day on the calendar that Icomplete them (which is EVERY day,except for the gym, which is 3x a week).In the lower left corner of my day boxes,I'll note when I go to the gym. Then, inthe upper right hand corner of Saturday'sbox (last day of the week), I draw asmall tick mark. That way I can look at

that corner and instantly see how manytimes I've been to the gym this week (orprevious weeks). It's simple and itworks great. Checking off a successfulday still feels great after months of minihabits!

If you have a hybrid Mini Habit likedriving to the gym or doing one push-up,you can note them by writing G for Gymor P for Push-up. Then you can lookback and see how often you've beenchoosing each.

Another option is a yearly “at a glance”calendar if you're just going to bechecking off days. And a smart budgetmove is to print one of the many free

printable calendars you'll find online(tip: simply print out your Gmailcalendar). Physically making a checkmark makes your success feel moretangible than digital tracking does.Additionally, if you put it in a prominentplace where you'll see it often, it's goingto make you mindful of your mini habits,your progress, and your success. Don'tunderestimate the impact of this!

Jerry Seinfeld appears to have been apioneer in mini habits. He famouslymarked each day on his calendar with abig X if he completed his joke-writingtask. He recognized that daily progresswas the key to forming a habit andimproving his craft of telling jokes.

He first told young comedian Brad Isaacabout his productivity secret before ashow one day. Brad wrote aboutSeinfeld’s response in an article forLifehacker:

“After a few days you'll have a chain.Just keep at it and the chain will growlonger every day. You'll like seeingthat chain, especially when you get afew weeks under your belt. Your onlyjob next is to not break the chain.”44

This is a good summation of mini habits.We don't want to break the chain. Andthe only excuse for breaking the chain isforgetting, because mini habits are tooeasy to fail. But forgetting is a poor

excuse too, because your calendar willbe in plain sight and every night beforebed you'll ask, “did I do my mini habitstoday?” And just to throw this out there,I don't see mini habits as a fad you'lldrop in a few months, but as a lifetimepursuit. It works too well and is tooflexible to quit!

Both writing down your mini habitsinitially and checking them off as you gois extremely important for your success.Don't skip it. Regardless of how youtrack your mini habits completion, Isuggest you at least handwrite the habitsthemselves in a place you can see.

Digital Tracking

Some people will want to use theirsmartphone, and while I prefer the old-fashioned way now, smartphones havesome significant advantages. The first isaccessibility—people carry theirsmartphones with them everywhere,even on vacations overseas. The secondadvantage is in visibility and reminders—some apps can remind you to do yourmini habits, or serve as a concrete cue totake action.

Here are the best apps to use for minihabits on IOS and Android.

Lift for IOS (free)If you want to go digital and have aniPhone, I highly recommend the Lift app.

It tracks your daily or weekly progressin whatever habits you set. It meshesperfectly with the Mini Habits systemand lets you see how many days in a rowyou've completed your Mini Habit. Iteven connects you to other Lift users togive you a feeling of community support.

Warning: The app might suggest that youset a vague goal like “drink morewater.” I’ve seen this exact goalrecommended. Never do this. How doesone “drink more water?” If you swallowa few drops of water in the shower, isthat good enough? Vague goals aren'tmeasurable and don't give you concrete“I succeeded” or “I failed” feedback.Concrete feedback is critical for

reinforcing behaviors. Make your minihabits very specific and very small. Youcan set the mini habit of drinking oneglass of water (with any of the cuestypes), for example.

Habit Streak Plan For Android (free)There is a Lift app for Android too, butit's in Beta and current reviews rate it at3.1 out of 5 (not great). The mostpopular and best-rated habit-trackingapp on Android is called Habit StreakPlan. It even allows you to setreminders, which can serve as yourdaily cue to do your mini habits and/oras a cue to check your mini habits beforebedtime.

The app also tracks how many daysyou've done it. It will show 52/53 if youmiss one day out of 53 days. Aim for100% success with no excuses, but ifsomething crazy happens—and it betterbe crazy given the size of theserequirements—and you miss a day, itwon't hurt you. If you miss two days in arow, something is wrong. These are waytoo easy to be missing two days in arow. Flukes happen, but they don'thappen that often.

Again, do not set any vague goals as aMini Habit. Vague goals or habits areunfocused, meaningless, and a terribleidea.

Desktop/Laptop SolutionsI think the best simple habit tracker forthe desktop is Joe's Goals(joesgoals.com). It's very simple.

Lift.do is the website for the desktopversion of the Lift app. You can also useany number of online calendars.

My friend Harry Che also has a solutionfor goals/habits called Goals On Track(goalsontrack.com). Of all the goalsystems I've used, his is my favorite. Imade a lot of progress when I startedusing it. There is a habit-tracking featurein his program, so if you're looking foran all-in-one solution to track goals andhabits, I'd recommend this. I'm wholly

focused on building habits, but noteveryone has that desire or luxury.

Overall, I think the mobile apps are abetter choice than computer appsbecause desktops and laptops lack the24/7 accessibility of cell phones.

Final Note About All Digital AppsYou're going to see ideas for pre-madehealthy habits to add from these appsand websites. Resist the urge to startthese habits unless they are alreadyminified (unlikely). If you really like oneof them, make sure that you minify itbefore adding it to your repertoire! Itlooks fun to try doing 100 push-ups perday, but it's less fun when you quit. It's

more fun to have one push-up per day asa goal and blow that tiny goal away for200+ days in a row. You can find minihabit ideas athttp://minihabits.com/mini-habit-ideas/.That page will be updated regularly withnew habits and “combo plans.” Comboplans are habit packages you can try thatwork well together. They’re mainly forfun, so you can call yourself coolphrases like “The Fit Writer,” whichincludes these daily mini habits:

• One push-up (or another exercise MiniHabit)

• Write 50 words

• Read 2 pages in a book

Step 6: Think Small

Why are we making these habits sosmall when we could aim higher? Andwhat if you stop at your small goal? Is itstill useful? Yes, and it has to do withwillpower.

The advantage of willpower is that itcan be strengthened. Very disciplinedpeople are those who have strengthenedtheir willpower. But that's only to getthem started. The extremely fit peopleyou see in the gym don't have to forcethemselves to exercise anymore. Theydon't actually need willpower anymore,because exercise has become theirbrain's first preference. When you

develop a habit, you'll say, “Brain, weneed to exercise,” and your brain willreply, “I was already on my way to thetreadmill. Try to keep up.”

We want to do three things on the road tohabit:

• Strengthen our willpower

• Make progress in the present moment

• Not exhaust our willpower

Losing any one of those three thingswould be a problem: Who is ok withalways having weak self-control? Whowants to “train” for 3 months beforemaking any progress in life? Who wantsto burn out from willpower exhaustion?

Uh...nobody.

Seeing those three tall orders doesn'tinstill confidence in a possible answer,but small steps satisfy all threerequirements. We’ll cover them, one byone.

Mini Habits For Willpower StrengthWhat good is strong willpower if youonly have it for two hours a day? Wewant our willpower to last the wholeday. Endurance training at the gyminvolves lifting lighter weights withhigher repetition, which trains themuscle to endure. Mini habits are thesame way. We're giving ourselves low-willpower tasks, but with high

frequency. It takes very little willpowerto do one push-up (perhaps just a slivermore than you'd think though—startingsomething truly is the hardest part,especially in regards to willpower).

Over time, this frequent repetition offorcing ourselves to perform achievabletasks makes our willpower stronger. It’spractice.

Mini Habits For ProgressThe biggest question of the Mini Habitssystem is surely regarding themeaningfulness of doing just one push-upa day or thinking one positive thoughtper day. One way to answer this is to tryit yourself and see what happens, but this

question still needs to be addressedlogically. How can this practice of doingseemingly meaningless quantities ofwork pay off with real results? Thereare two ways that it pays off.

A. Mini Habits Bonus Reps: Seeingyourself take action is more inspiringand motivating than anything else. Infact, this is a key strategy of MiniHabits—once you're fully motivated todo something, you don't needwillpower. Even though we're relying100% on willpower to do these minihabits, motivation plays a role whenwe choose to do more than that. Iusually find myself highly motivatedonce I start my habits, but only

occasionally before I take action. Minihabits aren't anti-motivational; theygenerate motivation. I failed withgetting motivated first for ten years, soI'm very familiar with it and slightlygrumpy about it.

Whenever I do any mini habit, I almostalways do more. And by almostalways, I mean well over 90% of thetime, and by more, I mean a lot more.Lay's Potato Chips had the famousslogan, “Bet you can't eat just one.”Well, I bet you can't do just one push-up or write a few words. Once youstart, you're going to want more. At thatpoint, it's as easy to continue as tostop. But what if you don't continue?

What if you only meet the minimumrequirement every single day? Is allhope lost? No, not at all.

B. The Mini Habits Safety Net(developing actual mini habits): Thehope with mini habits is that you'llshoot for 50 words a day and developthe habit of 2,000 words a day, but thatmay not happen right away. If you stickwith your mini habit despite onlymeeting the small requirement, it willform into a habit, which makes it mucheasier to do more of it. I know thebiggest hurdle for some people isgoing to be patience. You don't want tobe the person writing 50 words a day—you want to catapult yourself into

4,000 words a day and get to yourdreams as fast as possible. I have goodnews for you. If you can write 4,000words a day, do it. With mini habits,there is no upper limit. Knock yourselfout and overwork yourself. As long asyou can meet your mini requirementthe next day too, you're fine.

To conclude, if you can only meet thesmall requirement, it will still becomea habit (and relatively quickly basedon the small size). Once it is a habit,you're in perfect position to build uponit. I mean that literally—the perfectfoundation for doing more of somethingis having an existing habit of thatbehavior.

Know this: mini habits never hold youback. That would be like saying a sparkholds back a fire from starting. Minihabits are sparks with unlimitedpotential. “Normal goals” might be2,000 words of writing per day, but thatcan become a ceiling as well as aminimum. You'll feel satisfied at 2,000words and say, “That's enough.” With my50-word goal, I have written more than5,000 words in one day. This is soimportant to understand, because withthe wrong mindset, someone could thinkthat a small goal could hold them back.At some point, that spark is going tobecome a small flame, and later we'll allbe roasting marshmallows over the giant

bonfire, telling stories of yore.

If you want progress right now, you'll getit. Work yourself into the ground if youplease. And I mention that because manyof you are going to be motivated to startoff strong.

Mini Habits To Mitigate Willpower ExhaustionI touched on this in the previous parts,but what makes mini habits great is thatyou'll never have an excuse for failure,you'll never fear failure, and you'll neverfeel guilty. Even if you run out ofwillpower, the requirement is so smallthat you can find a way to get it done. Ican't think of a time when my willpower

was so weak that I would be unable todo a push-up, read a couple pages in abook, or write 50 words. Not a singletime.

For all of these reasons, small stepsdon’t hold you back—they’re critical forsuccess.

Step 7: Meet Your Schedule & Drop High Expectations

Expectations are a tricky thing in life. It'shelpful to have generally highexpectations for yourself, because itincreases your ceiling. In other words, ifyou don't believe you can be in goodshape, you never will be (as shown inthe self-efficacy study). It's not thatbelief increases your ability to do things—it increases your willingness to try. Ifyou never try to get in good shape, it'snot going to happen!

High expectations of a specific nature,however, such as running eight miles a

day or writing 3,000 words a day, arebest avoided. A problem you're going torun into is “sneaky swelling” of yourtargets. Even if you have your minihabits written down in plain sight, yourbrain might pick up on how for the last20 days, you've actually written about1,500 words a day, not 50 words (apersonal example from the early days).Your brain is always going to “register”the behavior, not the intention.

Subconsciously, overachievement canset a new expectation in your brain—onethat carries all of the weight andpressure of the typical goals you've setin the past (you know, the ones that don'twork). So it's vitally important to remind

yourself that your daily goal has NOTchanged. It's still only 50 words a day. Ifyou're continuing to exceed it, this canfeel disappointing, because you won'twant to break your 1,500 words-per-daystreak. To soothe this concern, remindyourself of how you got to that point(with the low goal) and that you'rewelcome to continue to write that muchif you want, but you are NOT allowed tofeel guilty or like a failure if you write50 words. 50 words is SUCCESS.PERIOD! Not even all caps can stressthis enough, because if you get thiswrong, then reading this book is a wasteof your time. All of the benefits, power,and advantages of this strategy hinge on

your ability to keep your goal small onpaper and in your mind.

If at any time you feel hesitant to meetyour goal, check your mind for hiddenrequirements. Are you really shootingfor your mini goal, or has your targetgrown? Refuse bigger targets—youcan do more with smaller ones.

Instead of high expectations for quantityof work, we're going to place ourexpectations and energy on consistency.Life's most powerful tool is consistency,because that's the only way forbehaviors to become habits, and when anon-habit becomes habit, it literallymeans that you've gone from fighting

against your brain to joining forces withit.

Step 8: Watch For Signs Of Habit, But Be Careful Not to Jump the Gun

This step is another reminder ofpatience. The Mini Habits strategyworks, but if you drop a behavior beforeit's truly habit and go on to add your nextset of habits, then you're going to riskdropping everything like an unskilledjuggler. (I am an unskilled juggler, but ifI set a mini habit to practice juggling forone minute daily, I bet I would get goodat it.)

Signs that it's habit:

• No resistance: it feels easier to do thebehavior than not to do it.

• Identity: you now identify with thebehavior and would feel completelyconfident saying, “I read books” or“I'm a writer.”

• Mindless action: you'll engage in thebehavior without making an executivedecision. You won't think, Ok, I'vedecided to go to the gym. You'll justgather your things and go because it'sTuesday, or because it feels like it'stime.

• You don't worry about it: starting out,you might worry about missing a day orquitting early, but when a behavior is

habit, you know that you'll be doing itunless there's an emergency.

• Normalization: habits are non-emotional. You're not going to beexcited that “you're really doing it!”once it is habit. When a behaviormakes the transition to normalcy, it'shabit.

• It's boring: good habits are notexciting; they're just good for you.You'll be more excited about lifebecause of your habits, but don't expectit with the behavior itself.

Warning: How to Handle OverachievementOverachievement is one reason I love

this system. We previously discussedhow overachieving your targetrepeatedly can create an expectation todo it consistently before your willpowercan support that much work. This issomewhat good and somewhat bad—it'sgood because your brain is beginning tomake it a habit, but it's bad because itraises the bar too soon, which removesthe many benefits of having mini habits.Starting small and removing the pressureof expectations is the recipe we're usingfor success, and it works well, so wewant to keep it as long as possible.

Again, I'm not saying you can't do more.If you really want to run five milestoday, but your target is just to run out

the front door, then that's great! Go aheadand run the five miles, but don't changeyour requirement to five miles. Alwaysbe willing to meet your tiny requirementand go back inside (you won't usuallychoose to go back inside, even beingcompletely free to do so).

If you’re not overachieving right away,don’t worry. My writing mini habitcaught fire right away, but it wasn’t untilthe 57th day that I saw consistentlysignificant overachievement in myreading mini habit. Some mini habitsparks will take longer to ignite thanothers. It mostly depends on your interestlevel in the habit and your perceiveddifficulty in continuing beyond your

initial target.

I’ve written well over my requirementalmost every day, but I continue to takecomfort in my freedom. I can stop at 50words. If I have plans, I can meet therequirement in minutes and enjoy myday.

If you overachieve, that's great. If not?That's still great. Not just ok, but great.We celebrate all progress, because it'snot easy to change your brain. But thenagain, it is kind of easy to do it this way,isn't it? Compared to wrestling withsome massive goal and running onwillpower fumes, this is a relativecakewalk with better results.

Eight Mini Habit Rules

“Know the rules well, so you can break them effectively.”

― Dalai Lama XIV

Some rules are meant to be broken.These aren’t, but the Dalai Lama quotestill applies. Once you master

something, you can manage it withoutrules. The key is in understanding theprinciples behind these rules.

Since these rules are helpful andpositive anyway, you won’t need to thinkabout breaking them. In fact, if you findyourself struggling to make progresswith your mini habits, it’s probablybecause you’re breaking one of theserules.

1. Never, Ever Cheat

There are a few ways to cheat the MiniHabits system. The first, most commonway to cheat is to give yourself a minihabit such as one push-up per day, butsecretly require that you do more thanthe single push-up. The reason why youneed to be really, really careful not to dothis is because every extra ounce ofrequirement you put on yourself is goingto require more willpower to meet. Andwhile you can likely handle that extrawillpower load, you may be pursuingmultiple habits at once, and we want toguarantee success, not toe the line ofsuccess and failure. You are always

allowed to do extra, so let the extra repscome from you, not your requirement. Ifyou want to do more in any session butfeel resistance, set additional smallrequirements after your Mini Habit.

Unlike other habit programs and self-help strategies, discouragement is veryrare with mini habits. If you only have todo a single push-up or sit-up, what canstop you from succeeding? It doesn'tmatter that your goal is small. You'retraining your brain for success andbuilding up a smaller version of whatyou hope to accomplish someday (anddepending on your eagerness, somedaycould be very soon!). If your results arelike mine, you'll be hitting your bigger

targets sooner than expected. But please,please, don't let that raise yourexpectations. Expect little and you'llhave the hunger to do more. When yourealize how powerful starting is, and thatyes, you had plenty of motivation to dothese things all along (which wasdormant until you started), life gets veryexciting.

2. Be Happy With All Progress

Being happy with small progress isdifferent from having low standards.There's a quote by Bruce Lee that sums itup: “Be happy, but never satisfied.”Bruce Lee did more with his limitedlifetime of 32 years than two typicalpeople do with 80 years each, so I listento him.

In Derek Sivers' TED Talk, he showed avideo of a man dancing in a field at anoutdoor event.45 The man looked a bitsilly out there by himself, dancing wildlyto the music. After a few seconds of

dancing, another person joined him.Then there were two. After anotherseveral seconds, another person joinedthem. And then another. And when thegroup reached about 10 people, a giantcrowd of people rushed in to join them.Dozens of people were dancing wildly.It is quite the spectacle!

And how did it start? One man danced.

This concept shows exactly what minihabits can do for you. The crowd ofpeople who joined late are like yourdormant dreams—shy and scared to takeaction. They aren't confident enough todance in the spotlight. That first mandancing is like your decision to take the

first small step. Then you notice, hey,I'm actually doing this right now. That'swhen your dormant dreams and passionsrush in to encourage you. You alreadyhave all the inspiration you need insideof you, but it may be dormant. Awaken itwith mini habits.

Mini habits are a pretty simple braintrick at the core, but also a lifephilosophy that values starting, lettingaction precede motivation, and believingthat small steps can accumulate intogiant leaps forward. When you completea mini habit, it means your mini man isdancing—cheer him on, because he'sstarting your personal growth party!Celebrate all progress.

3. Reward Yourself Often, Especially After a Mini Habit

What if rewards themselves wererewarding? That is, what if there was abenefit to receiving a reward other thanthe reward itself? We typically think ofrewards as things we get for doingsomething good, but rewards can giveback too. When you complete a MiniHabit and reward yourself—whether it'swith food, a fun night out, or amonologue in the mirror about howamazing you are—your reward is goingto pay you back by encouraging you toperform your mini habit again.

Ultimately, this creates a positivefeedback loop. You will get “addicted”to living a great life, and if that's notideal, I don't know what is. A perfectbehavior would reward you now andlater. Since most healthy behaviors (likegnawing on raw broccoli) offer limitedreward now and greater long-termrewards, it's helpful to attach some formof encouragement to the activity in theearly stages. Later, when you notice howgreat you look and feel, you can assumeit's from the broccoli and smile.

Starting is the hardest part, both in themoment and in the early days of habit-building. Initially, you will see limitedresults. After a hard workout you will

feel sore, but look in the mirror and seeno change. After eating broccoli, youwill feel about the same. After writingon day one, you will not have a fullbook. But when you do these things overthe long haul, you can end up with a fitand healthy body and several full-lengthnovels.

I don't imagine people will forget toreward themselves, but this “rule” ishere just in case.

4. Stay Level-headed

Aim for a calm mindset and trust in theprocess. In these past months that I'veseen so much progress, I have not beenoverly excited and “pumped up.” It hasbeen boring at times. The differencebetween winners and losers is that thelosers quit when things get boring andmonotonous. It's not about motivation;it's about leveraging and conserving yourwillpower to form lifelong good habits.

The calm mindset is the best mindset forbuilding habits because it's steady andpredictable. You may get excited as youmake progress, but don't let thatexcitement become your basis for taking

action. This shift to a reliance onmotivation/emotions is what foils manypersonal development plans!

5. If You Feel Strong Resistance, Back Off & Go Smaller

Common “wisdom” tells us that we'vegot to push through strong feelings ofresistance. Well, that's stupid. We'vealready established that willpower islimited, and if you're pushing beyondyour means now, it means you're going tocrash and burn later. If you think that youcan just do it later as well, then you'renot taking into account that you might nothave enough desire or willpower to do itlater.

Let's picture it. You're sitting down, and

you want to exercise, but you reallydon't feel like it. There's intenseresistance. What do you do? In thisscenario, you don't want to wrestle yourbrain if you can coax it into doing thingsyour way. Suggest progressively smallerand smaller tasks until the resistance youfeel is minimal.

If your goal is to work out at the gym,scale back to requiring yourself to driveto the gym. Say it's really bad, and thebest you can do is open your clothesdrawer. After you do that, pick up yourworkout clothes and put them on. If thissounds stupid to you, that's great! Whenit sounds stupid, that means your brain isgiving the go-ahead. These “stupid

small” steps slide under the brain's radarlike an expert jewel thief avoids securitycameras and trip sensors. And beforeyour brain catches on, you'll be on atreadmill at the gym. No step is toosmall.

The good news is that even if you burnyourself out, the solution for takingaction despite burnout is stupid smallsteps. Burnout is willpower exhaustion—it happens when people forcethemselves to do too much for too long.But as you're exhausted on the floor, youcan appeal to your brain and say, “Hey,could we just do one push-up rightnow?” After that, you might getmotivated to do more, or you could set a

few more of these stupid small steps.

If you think this strategy soundsabsolutely, completely ridiculous andstupid, it's because you think you can domore. Your pride is telling you thatyou're better than having to break tasksdown into small steps. But every giantaccomplishment is made of very smallsteps anyway, and to take them one at atime like this is not weak, but precise.Before I did the first push-up of the OnePush-up Challenge, I felt “above” doingit. I thought that one push-up wasworthless (because it's about likeclapping my hands as far as exercisegoes). But when it helped me exercisefor 30 minutes, it changed my mind. So

try this out, and see for yourself how youcan be nearly unstoppable with thisstrategy.

When I feel resistance to any task, Imake it smaller. Problem solved.

6. Remind Yourself How Easy This Is

When you look at your mini task and feelresistance, you're probably not thinkingabout how easy it is.

When I was a month into my mini habits,I felt strong resistance to reading my twopages late one night. I was thinking ofhow much I had read the day before, andassumed that I needed to replicate that. Ihad to remind myself that therequirement was still just two pages.

Another interesting and encouraginganecdote in favor of mini habits isrelated to Allen Carr's book titled The

Easy Way To Quit Smoking. Carr’s bookhas produced greater-than-expectedresults for helping people quit smoking.And do you know what the basictechnique is? Do you know what thedifference between Carr’s book andmost other quit smoking strategies is?

Rick Paulas discusses the surprisingsuccess in his article about the book:

What’s most shocking about thebook’s contents is perhaps what’smissing. There are no stats about lungcancer, heart attacks, or strokes. Noscare tactics like what the socialpranksters at TheTruth.com dabble in.No veiled threats to the state of your

sex life by focusing on bad breath andstained teeth. “The health scaresmake it harder [to stop],” writesCarr. And are obviously ineffective.

[Paulas mentions how the bookrepeats] Quitting is easy. Quitting iseasy. Quitting is easy.

“It’s very repetitive,” says Tompkins[a smoker]. “And I was aware of thatwhile reading. Like, is this somehypnosis thing?” 46

Carr’s five-hour seminar based on thebook has a 53.3% success rate, and thatabsolutely blows other methods out ofthe water (other methods have a roughly10-20% success rate). It’s surprising,

because it’s just information. It isn’thands on. It’s not a patch that deliversnicotine to the bloodstream.

And the secret? The key ingredient? Themagic?

He gets smokers to believe, consciouslyand subconsciously, that quittingsmoking is easy. When you believe, asmany do, that quitting smoking is so hard—doesn't it make sense that maybe yourown mind is making it difficult?

Mini habits make you believe thatadding healthy behaviors is easy. Even ifyou're skeptical now, you'll have nochoice but to believe when it startshappening.

Forget failures to get motivated; forgetepic willpower battles. The bar is solow here that it’s possible to never lose.And when you never lose, you tend towin. Over time, your subconscious mindwill change, and it gets easier to changeyour behavior from there.

And let me ask you—why were these(and other healthy behaviors) everdifficult in the first place? What'schallenging about typing words? What'sso tough about moving your body?What's the big deal with sitting still foran hour to comprehend text? The reasonthese became such giant challenges inour lives is because we wereindoctrinated into a motivation-based

society that says you have to get pumpedup to live your dreams or do yourlaundry. Our brains have been trainedincorrectly with societal norms, limitingbeliefs, and overwhelming goals.

The typical person’s subconscious mindis completely feral, dominating theprefrontal cortex, because people run outof energy trying to change their poorlycalibrated brain all at once. Mini habitsare the way for you to say, No, you knowwhat? It's not hard to exercise. It'seasy. I'm going to drop and do a singlepush-up right now, and that's really,really easy. It's so easy, I can do itevery single day. And I will. Then you'llbe in push-up position, having started,

and realize that it's also easy to do onemore push-up... and that it's relativelyeasy to do several more after that. Andby that time, you will be inspired tocontinue because your existing desire toexercise in life will connect with therealization that you can actually do this.

I'm excited for you. You're going torealize that easy and hard are relative.Why else would some people struggle toget out of bed and run around the blockwhile others run 100-mile races? It's adifference of the mind. Using most of thestrategies available to you today, you'regoing to struggle mightily to change yourbrain. They're all based on motivatingyou or telling you that you can't give in

when it gets tough. But that kind of cheapinspiration isn't going to last.

Mini habits are designed to change yourbrain and your life from the inside out.Your mini requirement becomes arecurring spark inside of you that willrefuse to die out. THAT is inspiring.You'll be in week three and realize, wow,I'm still doing this. In week six, you'llsee results (word count, muscle, weightloss, etc.) and prior beliefs about whatyou could do will shatter before youreyes. As long as you think small, you'regoing to be a juggernaut. The momentumyou build and the mindset shift that willtake place will amaze you, as it has me.

Did you know that you're reading proofof mini habits? How did a chronicallyundisciplined guy write this book whilewriting 4,000-word articles for hisblog? I gave myself a small requirement—just write 50 words a day. In the firstweek, I averaged about 1,000 words. Inthe second week, 1,500. In the thirdweek, 2,000 words every day. I wasn'ttrying harder; it was easier than before.

I hope you can see the changes aheadwith using mini habits. It's ok to getexcited, but excitement won't sustainyou. That will be your daily devotion todo the smallest thing in order to make thebiggest difference in your life.

If you’re skeptical, this is fine too—justgive it a try and you'll see.

7. Never Think A Step Is Too Small

If you think a step is too small, you'reapproaching this from the wrong angle.Every big project is made of small stepsjust like every organism is made frommicroscopic cells. Taking small stepskeeps you in control over your brain.Small steps are sometimes the only wayto move forward if you have weakwillpower. Learn to love them and you'llsee incredible results!

8. Put Extra Energy and Ambition Toward Bonus Reps, Not A Bigger Requirement

If you're anxious to make big progress,pour that energy into your bonus reps.Bigger requirements look good on paper,but only action counts. Be the personwith embarrassing goals and impressiveresults instead of one of the many peoplewith impressive goals and embarrassingresults.

Final Words

An Optional Modification: Increase Mini Requirement Incrementally (Careful!)

There is a modified version of the MiniHabits system where you scale up yourrequirement gradually. I prefer not to dothis, because with a greater requirement,you lose freedom, flexibility, andautonomy. I have never found the need to

do this with my mini habits, because therequirement only affects me when I meetthe bare minimum (and on those days,I'm happy the minimum is easy).

The best reason for you to increase yourrequirement would be if you findyourself only meeting the minimum dayafter day. I would still give it at least amonth before you try this. If you go along time without doing extra beyondyour easy commitment, then mini habitsmight not be as effective for you as forothers. Don't forget the safety net though—it will still develop into a habit, and asmall habit is relatively easy to scale up.

If you work better with a rigid structure,

it's something to consider. But until abehavior is habit, it's risky to increaseyour requirements. If you do, Irecommend doing it very gradually.

Once you have a habit, you canexperiment with higher requirements(such as my normal-sized gymrequirement after 6 months of doing onepush-up daily). Since you're building offof a strong base at that point, and havebuilt up your willpower, biggerrequirements are much more attainable.But again, I would be in no rush to dothis if you're getting good results withyour mini requirements.

It may be that you need 60 days of

meeting the bare minimum before youcan leverage the habit. This is how itwas with reading for me (as noted, day57 is when I saw a big improvement).

I first started with one push-up per day,and for about six months I only did about1-20 push-ups daily. I also exercised atthe gym occasionally, but to start, thiswas all I had to do. In late June, Ichanged my goal to driving to the gymthree times per week. I'm not sure Icould have done this to start with(maybe), but I know that doing the onepush-up challenge helped me build upmy self-discipline and willingness toexercise to make this leap easy.

Apply This Strategy Elsewhere

Mini Habits is more than just a systemto teach you how to develop healthy newhabits—it’s a guide for self-control.Now you know how your brain works,why motivation fails, and how to manageyour willpower to make it last. Usethese techniques for any situation inwhich you want to take action. Thebetter you get at mini habits, the moresuccess you'll have in all areas of yourlife.

That’s all there is to say for now. I hopethe end of this book is the new beginning

of a very exciting Mini Habits journeyfor you. And I wish you very smallsuccesses, over and over and over again.

Sincerely,

Stephen Guise

Want More?

For more mini habit ideas, visitminihabits.com.

Readers of this book get a $35 discounton the all-new Mini Habit MasteryVideo Course. Don’t forget to claim it!Click on this link to have the discountalready applied and I’ll see you insidethe course.

For researched and entertaininginformation on mini habits, small steps,focusing, minimalism, and personaldevelopment, visit my main blog,deepexistence.com.

Also consider signing up for DeepExistence's Tuesday messages. Theseare email-exclusive messages I send outevery Tuesday with helpful, life-improving information. And yes, I dolike to talk about mini habits a lot. If yousign up, you'll get a set of 40 DeepExistence exclusive focus-themeddesktop wallpapers (created by me). Inaddition, you'll get my first book, StressManagement Redefined: 8 Steps ToRemove Stress Before It Kills You. It’s ashort, very fun read at 8,000 words.Lastly, signing up gets you access to myfocus toolbox, which has the finestresources around to help you focus. It’sall free!

Final note: if you believe this bookshares an important message, pleaseleave a review on Amazon. Reviews (inquantity and in rating) are the mainmetric people use to judge a book'scontent. And if you have great resultswith this strategy down the road, pleasecome back and tell other readers (andme) about your success! Every singlereview has a huge impact on others’willingness to read a book, and if thischanges your life, you can changesomeone else's life by spreading theword. The impact of the mini habits ideais up to you.

Email: sguise@deepexistence.com

Tuesday Life Improvement Messages:http://deepexistence.com/subscribe/

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2 University of Scranton, Journal ofClinical Psychology (2012).http://www.statisticbrain.com/new-years-resolution-statistics/

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5 Szalavitz, M. Stress Can Boost GoodHabits Too. Time Magazine Online.(May 27, 2013).http://healthland.time.com/2013/05/27/stress-can-lead-to-good-habits-too/

6 Lally, P., C. H. M. van Jaarsveld, H. W.W. Potts, & J. Wardle. How are habits

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8 (Ibid., Lhermitte F., B. Pillon, & M.Serdaru. Human autonomy, 328)

9 (Ibid., Lhermitte F., B. Pillon, & M.Serdaru. Human autonomy, 328)

10 (Ibid., Lhermitte F., B. Pillon, & M.Serdaru. Human autonomy, 328)

11 Seger, C. A., B. J. Spiering. A CriticalReview of Habit Learning and theBasal Ganglia. Frontiers in SystemsNeuroscience. (2011). v 5, 66.http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3163829/#!po=15.2174

12 Knowlton, B J, J. A Mangels, and L.R. Squire. A Neostriatal Habit LearningSystem in Humans. Science 273,(1996). n 5280, 1399.

13 Dean, J. Making Habits, BreakingHabits: Why We Do Things, Why WeDon't, and How to Make Any ChangeStick Da Capo Press. Kindle Edition.(2013-01-01). p 9.

14 Wood, W., J. M. Quinn, & D. A.Kashy. Habits in everyday life:Thought, emotion, and action. Journalof Personality and Social Psychology.(Dec 2002). v 83(6), 1281-1297.

15 (Ibid., Dean, J. Making Habits,Breaking Habits p. 10)

16 Muraven, M. & R. F. Baumeister. Self-Regulation and Depletion of LimitedResources: Does Self-Control Resemblea Muscle? Psychological Bulletin.(2000). v 126, No. 2, 247-259http://psyserv06.psy.sbg.ac.at:5916/fetch/PDF/10978569.pdf

17 Oaten, M. & K. Cheng. Longitudinalgains in self-regulation from regularphysical exercise. Br J Health Psychol.(Nov 2006). v 11(Pt 4), 717-33.http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17032494

18 Baumeister, R. F., E. Bratslavsky, M.Muraven, & D. M. Tice. Ego Depletion:Is the Active Self a Limited Resource?Journal of Personality and Social

Psychology. (1998). v 74, No. 5, 1252-1265

19 Vohs, K. D., R. F. Baumeister, J. M.Twenge, B. J. Schmeichel, & D. M.Tice. Decision Fatigue Exhausts Self-Regulatory Resources.http://www.chicagobooth.edu/research/workshops/marketing/archive/WorkshopPapers/vohs.pdf

20 Hagger, M. S., C. Wood, C. Stiff, & N.L. Chatzisarantis. Ego depletion and thestrength model of self-control: a meta-analysis. Psychol Bull. (Jul 2010). v136(4), 495-525.http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20565167

21 Job, V., C. S. Dweck, & G. M. Walton.

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22 Berger, C. C. & H Ehrsson. Mentalimagery changes multisensoryperception. Current Biology. (June 27,2013). v 23(14), 1367-1372.http://ki.se/ki/jsp/polopoly.jsp?d=130&a=165632&l=en&newsdep=130

23 Hagger, M. S., C. Wood, C. Stiff, & N.L. Chatzisarantis. Ego depletion and thestrength model of self-control: a meta-analysis. Psychol Bull. (Jul 2010). v

136(4), p 2.http://www.psychology.nottingham.ac.uk/staff/msh/pdfs/mshagger_ego_depletion.pdf

24 Webb, T. L. & P. Sheeran. DoesChanging Behavioral IntentionsEngender Behavior Change? A Meta-analysis of the Experimental Evidence.Psychological Bulletin. (2006). v 132,no. 2, 249– 268.

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http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10176088

26 Fletcher, J. S., J. L. Banasik. Exerciseself-efficacy. Clin Excell Nurse Pract.(May 2001). v 5(3), 134-43.(http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11381353

27 Bandura, A. Self-efficacy: Toward aUnifying Theory of Behavioral Change.Psychological Review. (1977). v 84,No. 2, p. 194

28 Majority of Employees Don’t FindJob Satisfying. Right Management. (May17, 2012). http://www.right.com/news-and-events/press-releases/2012-press-releases/item23352.aspx

29 Cabrita, J. & H. Perista. Measuringjob satisfaction in surveys -Comparative analytical report.European Working ConditionsObservatory. (2006).(http://www.eurofound.europa.eu/ewco/reports/TN0608TR01/TN0608TR01_8.htm

30 Laran, J. & C. Janiszewski. Work orFun? How Task Construal andCompletion Influence RegulatoryBehavior. The Journal of ConsumerResearch. (April 2011). v 37, No. 6 ,967-983

31 (Ibid., Laran and Janiszewski, Work or

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32 Labroo, A. A. & V. M. Patrick. WhyHappiness Helps You See the BigPicture. Journal of Consumer Research.(2008).

33 Fishbach, A. & R. Dhar. Goals asExcuses or Guides: The LiberatingEffect of Perceived Goal Progress onChoice. Journal of Consumer Research.(2005). v32, 370-77.http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-science-willpower/201112/the-problem-progress-why-succeeding-your-goals-can-sabotage-your-w

34 (6. Lally et al., How Are HabitsFormed)

35 (19. Vohs et al., Decision Fatigue, p.7-8)

36 Danziger, S., J. Levav, & L. Avnaim-Pesso. Extraneous factors in judicialdecisions. PNAS. (2011). v 108, no. 17,6889–6892http://www.pnas.org/content/108/17/6889.full.pdf

37 Scheve, T. Is there a link betweenexercise and happiness? How StuffWorks. p 3.

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38 Quoidbach, J., E. V. Berry, M.Hansenne, & M. Mikolajczak. Positiveemotion regulation and well-being:Comparing the impact of eightsavoring and dampening strategies.Personality and Individual Differences.(October 2010). v 49(5), 368–373http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886910001820

39 Markman, A. Is Willpower Energy OrMotivation? Psychology Today. (2012).http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/ulterior-motives/201211/is-willpower-energy-or-motivation

40 (23. Haggar et al., Ego Depletion)

41 (32. Ibid., Labroo, A. A. & V. M.Patrick. Why Happiness Helps You Seethe Big Picture.)

42 (32. Ibid., Labroo, A. A. & V. M.Patrick. Why Happiness Helps You Seethe Big Picture.)

43 Briñol, P., M. Gascó, R. E. Petty, & J.Horcajo. Treating Thoughts as MaterialObjects Can Increase or DecreaseTheir Impact on Evaluation.Psychological Science. (January 2013) v

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44 Isaac, B. Jerry Seinfeld's ProductivitySecret. Lifehacker. (2007).http://lifehacker.com/281626/jerry-seinfelds-productivity-secret

45 Sivers, D. How to start a movement.(video) TED Talk. (2010).http://www.ted.com/talks/derek_sivers_how_to_start_a_movement.html

46 Paulas, R. Quitting Smoking Is EasyWhen It's Easy. Outside MagazineOnline. (2012).

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