After not writing much at all for two years, this month I took up the daily writing habit. My original goal was to do it every day in June, and apart from one miss 20 days ago, I wrote something every day.
Over the years, I’ve found that challenging myself to write a daily post is one of the only ways I actually can get myself to consistently write. If I try to do one bigger post a week or anything else, I fall off the habit. So even though I don’t love everything I write, I think this habit is the best way to actually get my ideas out of my head.
Writing something small every day doesn’t take a ton of time, but it does impact my day-to-day in a big way. It is a momentum-building win that is completely within my control, it helps we digest the ideas I’m thinking about, and it helps me approach my day with more insight and curiosity.
Every new idea gets run through the filter of “What do I think about this and would it be worth writing about?” and it makes me feel like I’m seeing things through new ideas.
So I’m going to keep going with the daily habit and at least do it until September.
One other habit that I added in June was cutting out alcohol. It’s been 30 days since I had a drink and I haven’t missed it much at all. More than anything else I think the challenge and feeling of self-control that comes from saying “no” in situations you feel pulled to say “yes” in is the biggest value of it. I also find that drinking is a lead domino for knocking down other good habits.
A classic example is you have a couple of drinks on a Saturday night, you end up eating something you wouldn’t otherwise eat, you sleep in on Sunday, you skip the gym, you wake on Monday feeling down…. and on into the week.
My goal for the no-drinking challenge is to get to 100 days, which will be mid-September.
The other daily habits that I’ve started in June and plan to keep going with are:
- Listening to an episode of Multiplier Mindset each morning
- Doing 75 kettlebell swings and 25 pushups daily
- Reading a book in Spanish for 30 minutes a day
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