How To Master The Secret of Long-Lasting Habits

There’s only one way to build and sustain healthy habits:

Build momentum.

Most people are unaware it’s the momentum that they crave -- and it’s a good kind of addiction.

Here are some ways you can keep the momentum going:

Be honest with what you can commit to.

Set big goals but focus on micro tasks and tiny habits.

When you want to try something new, you get this surge of motivation. You start setting goals that are not achievable. For example, spending 2 hours daily doing X. 

Then tomorrow comes. You either do it if you still have the motivation, or convince yourself to do it the next day. Chances are, if you have the willpower to do it for 2 hours, you will only last for a few days.

Why?

Resistance.

Steven Pressfield talks about this in his book The War of Art.

It’s normal to experience Resistance. You’ve got to be honest with yourself. You’re not always going to wake up and have the motivation to crush your goals. You’re not always going to have the discipline to wake up early. 

Steven says you have to imagine how you’ll feel when it’s time to do the thing. Think about getting tempted to snooze when your alarm clock goes off. Expect how nice and warm your bed will feel. Imagine the pain of having to show up.

Maybe it works for others, but not for me. 

I like to always gauge what I can do. It takes honesty to know what you can commit to. If you can only show up for a few minutes per day, that’s fine. It’s much better to show up for 10 minutes daily for 6 months rather than show up for 2 hours today and then stop the next week.

Just like anything else in life, it gets easier with time. You can slowly increase when 10 minutes doesn’t feel challenging anymore.

The point is to build the consistency muscle.

Focus on changing your identity rather than building discipline.

Two of the best books I’ve read are Atomic Habits and Psycho Cybernetics.

There’s one idea from both books that has always stuck with me:

Changing how you see yourself.

It’s easy to enjoy the flow of life when you act in alignment with the person that you are.

Dan Koe also talked about this in his recent video. He stuck to his boring routine for years by focusing on changing his identity. When your identity is a creator who earns 4M per year, it’s easier to show up as that person. Because that kind of person will write for 2-4 hours a day, spend time nurturing creativity, etc. 

Whereas if you focus on discipline, Resistance will keep haunting you.

Stop cheating.

I hate cheat days.

They are the easiest way to break the momentum. If you want to make real progress, stop skipping every weekend or so. Keep doing your thing even if you are on vacation (even for just a few minutes in the morning).

This is important because it takes as much harder to get back on track once you lose momentum. 

And instead of increasing your output, you’ll always be on Step 1. 

Embrace monotonous consistency but find ways to make things fun.

Everything becomes boring after a while.

The difference between the person who makes it and the person who doesn’t:

The person who makes it knows how compounding works. 

People don't want the boring stuff–– and that's understandable.

Luckily, you can always find ways to make a boring routine fun. I do this by measuring my progress in numbers.

For example, I use habit trackers. Keeping a streak makes it fun. I count how many articles I wrote for the week or month. I keep a log of my finances, food, etc.

It makes my progress feel “real and tangible” when I can see the numbers on a piece of paper.

And that’s it for today!

Don’t forget to check out 30DaysTo1K if you’re interested in making money online. Hit reply if you have any questions.

Have a lovely Sunday 😅