How to Start (and Keep) Healthy Habits (2025)

This applies not only to what you should do, but also to the things you think you want to do. Maybe you think you should learn Spanish, but you haven’t done anything to learn Spanish. Admitting that you are not committed to the idea enough to do the work of learning Spanish can help close the loop. Letting go of the feeling that you need to learn Spanish can be the only thing that frees your mind until you decide to take up paddleboarding as soon as possible. The point is, the new year isn’t just a time to start something new. It’s time to let go of the things that are no longer for you. In many ways, it’s an antidote to the ever-popular slogan, “Just do it.” Just doing it means you don’t have to think about it, instead deciding what you really want to do or need to do. Maybe spend some time remembering what you wanted to do in the first place, and if the reasons no longer resonate with you, just don’t do it. If you like this idea, I highly recommend taking Allen’s book. Go into more detail on this idea and have some practical advice on letting it go. You can still trace these things, if you decided, a few years ago, when you were paddleboarding through the Sea of ​​Cortez, that you really wanted to learn Spanish and were willing to do the work. will admit, my passion for Getting Things Done has waned over the years. Not because the system doesn’t work, but because I have found my life to be dramatically better by doing less, not more. It’s not that I have stopped doing things. That’s what I’ve found many of the things I felt like I had to do were not my idea; they were ideas I’d internalized from other places. I really don’t want to do it, so I don’t, and then I feel guilty about it. While everything I’ve written above is still good advice to start healthy habits and keep going, you need to spend some time and create them. make sure you know why you want to do what you do. I’ve been re-reading Bertrand Russell’s In Praise of Idleness, and this line jumped out at me: “The modern man thinks that everything should be done for others, and not for his own sake.” In the case of habit. , I think it’s worth considering whether you want to start a habit because you love what the habit is or because you think you should because it will make you happy or healthy or more successful. Doing things because you truly love them for their own sake is more likely to lead to success. Do the Work As one of my writing professors once said, to be a writer you have to put your ass on the couch and actually write. To become a yogi, you must practice yoga. To run, you must run. There is no easy way. You have to wear adult pants and do the work. However, on the flip side, as Clear showed early in Atomic Nature, the way to change who you are is to change what you do. “Every time you write a page, you become a writer. Every time you practice the violin, you become a musician. Every time you start practicing, you become an athlete.” Every time you put in the work, you become the person you want to be.

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