How to Create a Habit

Most guys on this blog are just looking for advice on how to get girls. And I get that, but as I grow older it becomes crystal clear that it’s more important to build yourself as a man and become the best version of yourself. You actually need to build up and develop self-discipline. For some people, building up habits is easy, they build it with sheer will-power. But for others, with high-dopamine, short attention span, and Fortnite, it can be difficult.

Fortunately for them, there is a way to make creating habits enjoyable. People normally look at very big goals and then they have a good start. But when they don’t see results right away, they start to have doubts, and then they quit. This is very common among millennials.

Set Smaller Goals

The key is to set smaller goals. Want to write 1000 words every day? Start with writing 50 words every day for a week, or even 10! Then 20, 50, 100, etc. Building habits aren’t about reaching your end goal immediately, it is about engraining doing that one thing you want to achieve every day.

For some people, setting smaller goals is just enough to get started. It keeps you enjoying what you do because you start small. This technique made me write 1000 words every day! And I plan on increasing this number to at least 2000.

Shift your Mindset

Shift your mindset from results to building habit. For example, don’t say, “Let’s see if I can make $1000 a month, so I will write 2000 words a day on my blog.” Instead, say, “Let’s see if I have enough self-discipline to write 2000 words a day.”

Let creating a new habit become your biggest challenge! Why? Because it will be easier to achieve it if you have control over it, and because it will give you results in another area, like making money for example. But, unlike making money, you can make steady progress whenever you want (You can’t have control on how many people will spend their money on your blog).

Going from 500 to 1000 words a day is fulfilling, and you will gain confidence in your self-discipline.
Writing 1000 words a day for your blog post will bring you money. It is impossible to create the right habits and not make money, especially in the long run. So, don’t worry about the results, focus on what you can progress fast at, so it keeps you motivated.

The Technique

First, you need a pen and paper. Let’s take lifting for example. Grab a piece of paper and write down habits you want to build. Write lifting in the middle of the paper and then write all the benefits of lifting around it.

Choose your benefits carefully. Ask yourself, what will make you feel passionate to lift? Take your time and write down as many as you want and keep going until you feel passionate about building that habit.

When you have done this, flip the paper and make 64 squares on the piece of paper, like this.

Now, what will actually make you feel great is filling up those squares with a big cross. But, you can only fill it when you do go to the gym and train! Every time you get back from the gym, take your pen and write a cross.

Never miss a day. Never. Let’s say you want to go to the gym 5 times a week. Then you need 5 rows. Missing a day puts you back 10 days. Unfortunately, in order to create a habit in our mind, we have to do that thing for at least 30 days in a row! We can’t miss a day. Some people say it requires 60 days, some 90. What I found out that works for me is 70 days. That is why I make 64 squares on my paper. Don’t write anything less than 30 days.

Whenever you feel like not going to the gym, I want you to flip the paper and read all the benefits of lifting you wrote. Understand that if you miss a day, you fucked up.

Of course, keep going, don’t quit but really try not to miss a day. With every cross you write, you are one step closer to achieving your goal.

I can tell you, there is nothing more satisfying than looking at the paper and seeing each and every square filled with a big cross.

Affirmations

Another thing I want you to do is affirmations.

That means that every time you go to bed and want to sleep (this is when alpha brain waves are activated), I want you to imagine yourself standing in front of that paper and crossing that last square, imagine all 64 squares being crossed and that there is not a single day that’s missed.

I want you to think about how you would feel when you accomplish that, I want you to try to feel that same emotion every time you go to bed, fulfillment and satisfaction. This is how you practice focus and it will help you tremendously with staying on track with your mission.

If you do this right, I promise you the next morning you get up you will only think about going to the gym, and you will do that as soon as you can, because you will be focused.

Conclusion

This whole technique is called the X effect, it helped me create habits I couldn’t even dream about. It helped me create habits like writing, meditating, lifting, coding, etc. It made me exit the corporate world. And it all started with a piece of paper and a pen.

Note that this isn’t a magic trick or a shortcut, you still have to do it for 64 days in a row. You still have to get up from a bed and start doing things, so don’t expect this to be easy. This technique only makes things more enjoyable.

That being said, there is only one thing left for you: Create habits that will result in great success.