Are Your Habits Changing Your Life?
I’ve written before about discipline, but lately I’ve started thinking more about habits and how small daily actions can change your life.
For many people, discipline sounds restrictive. It feels like forcing yourself to do things you don’t want to do. That’s why I’ve started thinking about it differently. Instead of focusing on discipline, I focus on habits.
Two books have influenced my thinking more than most when it comes to habits and personal growth: Atomic Habits by James Clear and The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson. Although they approach the topic differently, they both point to the same truth: small actions, repeated consistently over time, can create remarkable results.
For years, I searched for motivation. Whenever I felt stuck, I would set new goals, create new plans, and look for ways to become inspired again. The problem was that motivation always seemed temporary. It would work for a while, sometimes for a few weeks, sometimes for a few months, and then it would disappear.
Eventually, I realized that motivation is a wonderful feeling, but a poor foundation. Habits are much stronger.
Today, my focus is not on feeling motivated. My focus is on building habits that naturally lead to the next action.
One of the most useful concepts I’ve learned from Atomic Habits is habit stacking. The idea is simple: one habit becomes the trigger for the next.
My morning routine follows this principle. I wake up, take care of my morning routine, step on the scale, get dressed, drink a glass of water, put on my shoes, start an audio program, and head out for a walk.
The walk isn’t really the goal. The goal is to follow the sequence. Each small action naturally leads to the next one.
When I get home, I prepare breakfast while continuing to listen to the audio. After breakfast, I clear away the dishes, sit down, and begin reading.
That reading habit has become one of the most valuable parts of my day.
Every morning I spend approximately 90 minutes reading and studying. Right now, I am reading How to Win Friends and Influence People and reviewing highlights from The Magic of Thinking Big, The Slight Edge, and Atomic Habits.
Ninety minutes may not sound like much, but over the course of a year, those ninety minutes become more than 547 hours.
That’s almost fourteen full-time working weeks invested in learning and personal growth. It’s enough time to read and study somewhere between 35 and 55 books, depending on their length and complexity.
Think about that for a moment.
How do you think your life would change if you spent the next year studying 35 to 55 books on leadership, communication, habits, psychology, personal growth, or success?
Do you think you would think differently? Do you think you would make different decisions? Do you think you would see opportunities that you currently overlook?
I certainly believe you would.
Another habit I’ve introduced is journaling my days. This is something I’ve read about in several personal development books, and John Maxwell also talks about the value of reflection. But for me, this is still a new habit.
In the past, I often read books without stopping long enough to reflect, write things down, and apply what I was learning. Now I’m beginning to journal what I do, where my time goes, and what I actually learn from the material I study.
One of the biggest surprises was discovering that I had more available time than I thought. Once I started tracking my days, I could clearly see what moved me forward and what didn’t.
Many of us believe we don’t have enough time. Sometimes the real problem isn’t time. It’s that we don’t know where our time is going.
This connects directly to one of the core ideas in The Slight Edge: small actions matter.
The small things we do every day often seem insignificant in the moment. Reading ten pages. Listening to an audio. Going for a walk. Spending a few minutes learning something new.
None of those actions seem life-changing. Yet over time, they compound.
The same principle works in reverse. If we stop learning, stop growing, and stop investing in ourselves, the decline is usually so gradual that we barely notice it.
That’s why I believe habits are far more important than motivation. Motivation comes and goes. Habits remain. And over time, those habits shape who we become.
Many people spend years trying to change their circumstances while ignoring the daily actions that create those circumstances.
Real change usually starts much smaller.
It starts with a single habit.
Then another.
And another.
The goal isn’t to become perfect overnight. The goal is simply to move forward, one small step at a time.
In my next blog, I’ll explore something I’ve understood for many years, but have started approaching differently: books, learning, and the difference between simply reading a book and truly studying it.
Related reading: Habits become easier to maintain when we understand what discipline really is. Read: Discipline Is Not What Most People Think.
Want to understand what keeps you motivated and helps you follow through on the habits that move you forward? Learn more about the Goal Style Test.
