Habit building system I wish I found at 18

Summary

The speaker candidly shares their transformation from a life of bad habits and self-neglect to adopting a daily meditation habit that has significantly improved their life. They credit the book 'The Compound Effect' and YouTuber Hamza Areed for their inspiration and detail a three-step framework for habit formation: making it easy, measurable, and either flexible or strict. The speaker's personal experience with this framework has led to a consistent meditation practice and a gym routine, emphasizing the importance of accountability and enjoyment in building lifelong habits.

Takeaways

• 😔 The speaker was in a rut in 2022, lacking good habits and feeling isolated, which led to a poor self-image and lifestyle.
• 🏋️‍♂️ In mid-2023, the speaker started to change by adopting the habit of meditation, inspired by Hamza Areed and the book 'The Compound Effect' by Darren Hardy.
• 🧘‍♂️ The initial step in forming a habit was to make it 'embarrassingly easy', starting with just one to two minutes of meditation each day.
• 📈 The speaker emphasizes the importance of making a new habit so easy and consistent that it naturally becomes a lifelong routine.
• ✅ The use of a habit tracker was a key strategy to make the habit fun and measurable, which helped in self-competition and accountability.
• 🎯 The habit tracker provided a visual representation of progress, which was motivating and released dopamine, reinforcing the habit.
• 🕒 The speaker found that having a strict time for the habit, such as meditating immediately after waking up, helped in forming the habit faster.
• 🔄 The speaker applied the same principle to going to the gym, making it a daily routine for six months until financial constraints stopped it.
• 💡 The framework for forming a year-long habit includes making it easy, measurable, and either flexible or strict depending on personal preference and lifestyle.
• 🚫 The speaker experienced that when a habit becomes ingrained, not doing it feels worse, indicating the habit has become a necessary part of their routine.
• 👍 The speaker hopes that sharing their experience will be valuable to others, encouraging them to take steps towards self-improvement.

Q & A

What was the speaker's lifestyle like in 2022?

In 2022, the speaker described their lifestyle as being in a rut with no good habits, waking up late, feeling isolated, and indulging in unhealthy behaviors such as excessive screen time and poor diet.

What was the speaker's weight and how did they feel about it?

The speaker weighed 90 kg, which they felt was excessive for their height and likened it to a 'crime', indicating dissatisfaction with their physical state.

What was the speaker's daily routine like?

The speaker's daily routine involved waking up late, checking their phone with no notifications, watching YouTube, and eating unhealthy meals like ham sandwiches, with occasional gym visits only when prompted by a friend.

What made the speaker question their life choices?

The speaker started questioning their life choices when they compared themselves to successful YouTubers and other people they admired, wondering if they lacked a 'success gene' that prevented them from achieving their dreams.

What was the turning point for the speaker in mid-2023?

The turning point for the speaker was in mid-2023 when they decided to try meditation seriously after watching videos by self-improvement YouTuber Hamza Areed and reading 'The Compound Effect' by Darren Hardy.

What is 'The Compound Effect' and how did it influence the speaker?

'The Compound Effect' is a book by Darren Hardy that discusses making habits easy to establish. It influenced the speaker by providing a framework to develop a daily meditation habit that they have maintained for almost a year.

What is the 'embarrassingly easy' strategy for forming a habit?

The 'embarrassingly easy' strategy involves starting a new habit at a very small scale, making it so easy that one would be embarrassed to tell others how simple the action is, which helps in establishing the habit consistently.

How did the speaker apply the 'embarrassingly easy' strategy to meditation?

The speaker started meditating for only one to two minutes a day for the first month, gradually increasing the time spent in meditation until it became a consistent part of their daily routine.

What is a habit tracker and how did the speaker use it?

A habit tracker is a tool used to record the consistency of a habit, often with marks like ticks or crosses. The speaker used a habit tracker to keep score of their meditation habit, marking a tick for each day they meditated and a cross for days they didn't, which motivated them to maintain the habit.

What does 'make it flexible or strict' mean in the context of forming habits?

'Make it flexible or strict' refers to the approach of either allowing a habit to be performed at any time of the day, making it more adaptable to one's lifestyle, or doing it at the same time every day to form the habit faster, as recommended by 'Atomic Habits'.

How did the speaker's approach to going to the gym change?

The speaker applied the habit-forming strategies to going to the gym, showing up every day without fail for six months. The only reason they stopped was due to financial constraints, not lack of motivation.

What is the final advice the speaker gives for forming a lifelong habit?

The speaker's final advice is to combine making the habit 'embarrassingly easy', making it measurable, and making it either flexible or strict, depending on one's lifestyle, to ensure that the habit becomes a consistent part of one's life.