How to Make Yourself Better Each 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?
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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?
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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.