I know a method that is amazingly effective. It works for me. It works for every human being because we are created to utilize it.

It’s very simple, but it isn’t easy.

It works like magic; it works on autopilot with little to no conscious effort. It works every day.

I know a method that is amazingly effective. It works for me. It works for every human being because we are created to utilize it.

It’s very simple, but it isn’t easy.

It works like magic; it works on autopilot with little to no conscious effort. It works every day.

HABITS

To make yourself better each day all you need to do is to develop good habits.

Habits have a paramount influence on your life. There are many books written about the topic, zillions of articles, a lot of research done, and people still don’t comprehend how crucial habits are for our wellbeing.

There was research done that concluded about 40% of our actions are habitual. Fine and good. What you don’t get, as well as 95% of the population is that those 40% dictate 90% of life outcomes.

The other 60% of our actions are random in time. One day you eat a carrot, another day you eat a burger. The effects of those actions nullify each other. The effects of your habits compound with time.

Time is the most powerful force in the universe, next to gravity. Your habits leverage this force. A river leveraging time created The Great Canyon. Normally, water is helpless against solid rock. But give it some time (thousands of years) and it will prevail.

You see, by compounding, your habits give your life direction. You are either getting better each day or not. There is no middle ground here. Have a look at this chart, it describes your reality:

This chart is from the book The Slight Edge. As you can see, good habits set you up for success. Bad habits set you up for failure. The only “middle ground” is a process of switching from one curve to another described in this book.

The Middle Ground

It’s amazing how industrious we get when we hit rock bottom. When a health condition endangers your life or bankruptcy is all too real an option, you can mobilize yourself and frantically fight for your life. You start doing things that move you up above the water’s surface so you can take a deep breath.

But as soon as you get out of your pitiful condition, complacency creeps in. You abandon good habits and slip down the downward curve to meet rock bottom again.

The key to success in life and the way to make yourself better each day is to keep your daily disciplines no matter how you feel. Keep doing your daily disciplines and you will constantly climb the upward curve of life.

The most amazing thing is that you don’t have to make your habits bigger each day. The compound effect makes their positive influence grow with each day. You leverage the power of time.

Good Habits Take Over Your Life

When you occupy yourself with your daily disciplines, the most beneficial side effect is that you take away your energy and time from bad habits. Good habits take over your time-space and your mind-space.

You cannot be in two places at the time and you cannot think two thoughts simultaneously. By focusing on doing your good habits, you are starving your bad ones. If your day is full of positive activities, there is no space for negative ones. If your mind is occupied with doing your work, it doesn’t complain or find excuses at the same time.

How to Make Yourself Better Each Day?

Take the Tiny Habits course. It’s free, it’s ultra-short (less than an hour overall spread over one week) and teaches you as much by practice as by theory. After one week you should have an intimate understanding of building good habits which comes from experience.

Tiny habits trick your mind into supporting your change rather than hindering it. These habits are so small that your mind does not treat them as “stupid” new activities that might overload precious energy resources.

And this is the most crucial aspect of tiny habits. They must be ridiculously small to avoid the mind’s defense mechanism. If you are not tempted to laugh off the small action your new discipline will require as inconsequential, then it’s too bold to be labeled as “tiny.”

The biggest benefit of tiny habits is that they help you develop consistency. What can you achieve by doing one push-up a day? In terms of fitness performance, it’s ridiculously negligible.
The result you want from your tiny habits is the consistency of effort. Once you become consistent, you will be able to step it up to 100 or 500 push-ups a day.

When you start a tiny habit, you will succeed at it the moment you do it. You literally cannot fail to floss one tooth, walk around your house, or do whatever stupid small discipline you choose.

How to Actually Develop Good Habits?

Here are some highlights straight from my experience:

Decide what habit do you want.

Be specific. Design it. How often? When? Where? What will you do? How many repetitions? For how long?
Define the trigger and endpoint for your habit.

Start small

The definition of a “tiny habit,” as described by B. J. Fogg, is a behavior:

• you do at least once a day
• that takes you less than 30 seconds
• that requires little effort

Perform your discipline at least once a day.

Weekly and monthly habits have their place too, but if you cannot build and maintain a daily habit, a weekly one will be a nightmare to develop. Learn the art of habit development in the most efficient way, via daily activity, and only then start more ambitious projects.

Track your habit daily.

“You can’t change what you don’t measure.” — Tony Stubblebine

That’s exactly my experience. When I measure my habits, when I track them, the process of habit development is smooth and efficient (well, compared to NOT tracking, of course). Make sure that the tracking method you choose serves its purpose, but doesn’t become an end unto itself. You shouldn’t spend too much time and attention on tracking. Remember what your main goal is: building a new habit.

Build streaks.

They will help you with your motivation like nothing else. In the end, they will integrate your habits into your personality. You will not be able NOT to perform your disciplines.

The Power of My Habits

Today I woke up and discovered that I earned $120 overnight from my book sales. I have been waking up with such realization (ranging from $10 to $180) every single day for the past year.

What is more, I double those earnings with my customers’ book sales. I advertise their books on Amazon and they are selling them, with profit, every day.

Can you imagine how much simpler is my life because of that?
***
I got the freedom to liberate my wife from her day job or to downsize my day job to 10 hours a week. I can afford to travel to the States twice a year and meet face to face with my mastermind buddies and amazing guest speakers.

I don’t look at prices in the grocery store.

Can you imagine how much creativity and mental bandwidth released for me because I don’t have to worry about money on a daily basis?

I don’t need to because I built daily habits which helped me to start a journey toward financial independence. I track all of my expenses. I save a portion of each incoming payment. I write every single day. I keep an eye on my Amazon ads every day.
***
Do you know how much better my life is because I no longer have headaches? I used to suffer from terrible headaches quite regularly. I remember the last such an attack in 2012. I had to lie still on the floor to not to vomit from the pain.

Most probably dehydration was at the core of my migraines. I’ve been drinking two glasses of water first thing in the morning since 2013. I build more of healthy habits – I exercise every day, I eat raw vegetables and fruits every day, and I track my sleep… I was sick only three times since July 2013.

Even my chronic affliction – allergy- greatly diminished after implementing those small daily habits. Thus, I had more energy to hustle like crazy for the last several years, writing and publishing 16 books, and building my book advertising business.

Can you imagine how much better you can become if your health wasn’t a big concern anymore?
***
Most probably you cannot imagine. You have been struggling your whole life with finances, health or maybe with education or relationships. You are getting better in those areas not by sudden enlightenment, but by building small daily disciplines that are taking care of those areas in the background mode. They work on autopilot. You don’t think about them. You perform them semi-mindlessly AND you make yourself better each time you perform them.

I can compare this experience to breaking into the orbit in a spaceship. At the beginning the energy expenditure and pressure is astronomical. Building good habits is hard work, even if it’s enjoyable.

However, once you are on the orbit you can travel millions of miles with minimal energy expenditure. You gain the momentum and it carries you wherever you want to go.

Develop good habits. That’s the ironclad method to make yourself better each day.

I consciously practice about 20 things daily “to have a good life,” and probably twice as much I do without even thinking about it. Focus on the following several areas; I will provide specific habits for each of them.

1. Habits.

Your habits make you who you are. The etymology of the word “habit” says that your habits determine your essence. I fully agree with that. Pay attention to your habits. Develop good habits in a conscious manner. Look for new habits and incorporate them into your life, into your daily schedule.

When it comes to habits the best habit you can have is to monitor them. Have in place a system for tracking your daily activities. I track my habits in application Coach.me, but you can do it in many ways: on your wall calendar, personal notepad, Excel or text files.

2. Self-awareness.

This is extremely important. You are the person who talks with yourself the most. If your internal dialog is crappy, you cannot have a good life. Whatever good will come your way, your negative self-talk will find a way to spoil it.

Self-awareness provides a multitude of benefits other than just improving your self-talk. When you strive to consciously control your internal world, the external world seems to comply and become more controllable. If you are aware of your thoughts, words and deeds you make fewer mistakes. If you lead your life on autopilot – on the contrary – it’s easy to make mistakes.

Self-awareness also gives you input about your weaknesses and strengths. In the new economy where information is everything, this is priceless. People who know themselves can position themselves in a place where they can provide the most value to others and they can be rewarded accordingly.

Habits:

Journaling. A lot of successful people kept journals, including at least a few who had a global impact on politics at their times (Napoleon, Marcus Aurelius). When you keep a daily journal, you can often consult “with yourself” and notice what’s going on inside your head.

Meditation. I know people for whom meditation was a life breakthrough. My friend, Rob Cubbon, came from a position of being unable to break his bad habits and feeling unhappy with his career and life to ditching alcohol and smoking and starting his own business. If you ask around, you will get to know more such stories. When Pat Flynn started to meditate regularly his revenues grew from five to six figures.

Meditation makes you aware of your internal clutter and chatter. When you try to sit for a minute and think nothing you can’t help, but notice the mess in your head.

3. Health in general.

“Take care of your body. It’s the only place you have to live.” — Jim Rohn

It’s a struggle to have a good life if you’re sick. It’s possible, but it’s an uphill struggle. There are some very successful people with serious health problems: Nick Vujicic has no limbs, Stephen Hawking is paralyzed, my friend is a bestselling author but she has a genetic disease, lives in almost constant pain and doctors give her no more than 7 more years of life. I wouldn’t have exchanged places with any of them.

And there are many things you can do every day to maintain or improve your health.

Inspired by concerns about my weight loss I researched quite a lot (which is a bit unlike me, I prefer practice above theory) and built 8 habits:

-limiting sugar intake,
-intermittent fasting,
-exercise,
-drinking coffee to accelerate my metabolism,
-drinking two glasses of water first thing in the morning,
-tracking my consumption,
-eating at least one raw vegetable/ fruit a day,
-and tracking my sleep.

Writing a couple of books and several articles about health I recognized even more healthy habits in my life that are working on autopilot, so I usually don’t think about them:
-not eating outside,
-not drinking coffee after 3 pm,
-reading food labels when I buy the item for the first time,
-running all the stairs,
-taking stairs instead of an elevator,
-napping whenever I feel like it (including behind the desk at the office).

I’m pretty sure I have more habits that contribute to my wellbeing, but they are so ingrained into who am I, that I don’t even notice them.

The last time I was sick was in July 2013. I beat over 128 fitness records since April 2013.

And I hardly ever think about my health. Even when I do, like if I hesitate if choose stairs or an elevator, the moment of decision is ultra-brief and 95% of time I choose in accordance with my habits.

Automating my health took me no more than one year and it will benefit me to the end of my days.

4. People, or rather relationships.

This is paramount as well. Human happiness comes from relationships.

If you take 1,000 happy people, 900 of them are happy because they have good relationships in their lives. The remaining 100 can draw their happiness from their achievements, possessions or other sources. Relationships are the only factor that scientists found correlated with happiness. It’s worthwhile cultivating them.

“You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” — Jim Rohn

Another thing is that whom you are hanging with affects who you are. You don’t have to acknowledge that, you don’t have to believe that, it’s just a part of human constitution. We absorb attitudes by osmosis. If you surround yourself with positive, passionate, successful people, you will become positive, passionate and successful. Period.

One more scientific tidbit—humans are motivated in a big part by other humans. We are very careful about what our peers think about us, we want to impress our mentors, we want to be loved in our families and there are some people who just want to do good for others from a pure benevolence.

Cases of people who have undertaken a great effort just for their own sake are exceptionally rare, because they are, well, exceptions. I’ve seen so many questions on Quora about self-motivation. In short, the answer to all of them is: there is no such thing as self-motivation. Some people possess this exceptional trait, but they are rare like Savants. If you want to be motivated you’d better start working on your relationships. Motivation comes mostly from other people, even if in the end it translates into “I want to look good in their eyes”.

I advise two daily activities:

one that builds your people skills and another one for cultivating your existing relationships.

If your social skills are well below average, it’s hard for you to create relationships in the first place. It doesn’t have to be something grand, in fact, it’s much better to start small and be consistent. I started from making eye contact with people on the streets and in public transportation.

Cultivating your relationships should also involve a small sustainable activities: saying “I love you” to your spouse, praising your kids, sending a text message to friends or siblings etc.

5. Education.

Your education doesn’t finish when you leave a school. Humans are designed and created for growth. We strive for progress, it’s in our nature. I think most of a modern existential void comes from the lack of growth in our lives.

Education doesn’t equal school. You don’t have to get degree after degree for the rest of your life. But if you want to progress, you need to remain curious and research and study on your own as long as you actively work in some area of activity.

For example, since I decided to become an author I read about a dozen books about the writing craft, being an authorpreneur and self-publisher. I consumed dozens of podcast episodes dedicated to writing and publishing. Teaching is a huge boost to one’s learning process, so I contributed to a few podcasts as well as a guest.

I followed a few authors’ blogs and interacted with their owners and their audiences.

I joined a few online communities for authors and writers and exchanged experience with my peers.

None of the above reminds me of a classic education, but it was as valuable as master’s degree, or even more so. My friend Matt Stone studied publishing and quickly he realized that most of his professors had no clue how to publish a book in practice.

There are different ways to study in online world and you should pick those that are suitable for your situation. You can read books, magazines, websites and blogs. You can listen to podcasts or audio programs. You can take online courses (most of them are in a video format) or watch video on YouTube or similar platforms.

I hate learning from videos. The only video content I can stand is an online real-time interactive class.

I don’t prefer listening either, mostly because I find very few opportunities to listen to. When I do something physical, like taking a walk or doing chores, I prefer to pray. Besides, when I really want to learn, I have to go back to the material anyway and make notes.

I love to learn via reading. I retain much more information that way and even when I don’t I can search and access written material much faster than audio or video.

Take inventory of your learning preferences and build your own self-university accordingly.

6. Gratitude.

By cultivating gratitude you keep (or make if it’s not) your brain positive. Why is that important? When your brain is positive:

“every possible outcome we know how to test for raises dramatically.” – Shawn Achor

Gratitude is so important because it’s a catalyst. It has potential of providing better results in all areas of your life. EVERY measurable output, remember?

So far scientist have correlated gratitude with less stress, more health, better relationships…

It’s also absurdly easy to cultivate on a daily basis. I started my gratitude practice from a gratitude journal about my wife. Since September 2012 every day I note at least one thing about her I’m grateful for.

Your gratitude journal can be in a multitude of forms: about a person, about your daily efforts, your daily achievements, possessions, emotions, relationships or the mix of them all.
My gratitude entries are usually a dry but long list. I know people who jot down only a few points, but add elaborate explanations why they are grateful for them.
A tidbit: in almost every gratitude journal food appears.

Another form of expressing gratitude on a daily basis is sending thank you notes. It not only helps you focus on reasons to be grateful for, but also trains your “social muscle”. Expressing gratitude is unbelievably rare and people will your remember you for that.

“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” — Maya Angelou

I once took an inventory of thank you notes I received from my readers. I obtained a ratio about 20:60,000
Even if I was mistaken because of my normal tendency to focus on negative, it couldn’t increase beyond 100:60,0000. That’s still exceptionally rare.

That’s how exceptional you will be expressing your gratitude.

Just 6 simple things to do daily to have a good life. Design yoour own habits in each area. Implement them. Enjoy your improved life.