Be Consistent with New Habits Effortlessly
Success and Beyond: Letter of Progression #5
Feb 5, 2024

Before the pandemic, I wanted to learn programming.

Which meant I had to watch YT tutorials and practice daily.

Thing is, I could never get myself to be consistent.

Until... I used one of the different methods I'll be talking about today.

So, what are the 3 methods?

Here they are:

• Having a "why"

• Enjoying the work

• Doing the bare minimum

Ideally, you'd apply all 3, but even using just one seems to work just fine.

Without any delay, let's jump right into them.

Method 1 → Having a "why"

This is the one piece of advice I've most found on 𝕏.

So, I decided to get it out of the way first.

Having a "why" basically means, you need to have a reason, A PURPOSE, to maintain consistency.

If you randomly set a goal of journaling every day just because Dan Koe or some other famous dude says it's great for you...

Stop. For. A. Second.

Go online and search up HOW journaling will help you in your life.

Then, decide to perform the habit if it's something you need in your life.

If you're tryna detach from the ego and be more aware for e.g., journaling might not always be useful.

(I've consistently been journaling every day for much over a year, but lately... I've been having a complicated relationship with it.)

Focus on doing habits that matter to you and that you have a genuine reason to do every day.

If you care about the goal/motive behind it enough, it should motivate you to work towards it every day.

Note: We'll talk about habits you might not care about, like doing homework, in the next section.

Have a genuine purpose/goal you care about, so doing the work becomes motivating and inevitable.

Method 2 → Enjoying the work

Ask yourself the following question.

If you genuinely enjoyed the work, would you struggle with consistency?

No, you wouldn't.

Try to have fun with the work you need to do, so that it goes from being a chore, to the highlight of the day.

There's a lot of ways to do this, such as:

• Making it easier

• Listening to music

• Creating mini-goals for it

AND THE BEST METHOD...

• Getting into a FLOW STATE

Mastering the art of getting into a flow state is like the final boss-battle of productivity.

It takes a decent while to get good at (took me a few weeks), but once you do, IT FEELS AMAZING.

Here are some benefits of the flow state:

• Makes time go slower (or faster)

• Makes the task stimulating

• Boosts work efficiency

• Results in sharp focus

• Promotes enjoyment

• & much more

I've written a whole in-depth letter on getting into flow states, so feel free to check that out to learn more.

The letter is titled “End Procrastination and 2x Your Productivity”.

Make yourself enjoy the work so work becomes something to look forward to.

Method 3 → Doing the Bare Minimum

I saved the best for last.

This is the method which made it EFFORTLESS for me to build so many new habits and achieve goals.

It's super simple, and it has two major parts to it.

M3] Sub-Part 1 → Keeping it Easy AF

So, this is super simple, and is basically what the method's name suggests.

You're gonna do the BARE MINIMUM work that's trivially easy.

This works best for habits you're performing to reach a certain goal, so it's not ideal for stuff like doing homework.

Let's say you have a goal of building a super aesthetic physique.

Well normally that'll require like 3-5x of gym workouts per week.

But what if you don't have the motivation to do that?

It's all good. Just do 1 push-up daily instead.

"Lol what?"

Yeah, you read that right.

All you need to do for this step is "do the work” but keep the bar super low.

M3] Sub-Part 2 → Progressive Overload

Now comes the interesting part.

By this point, let's say it's been weeks since you started your intense training regimen of 1 push-up/day.

This would've started to get so easy that it's boring.

So, let's step it up a notch.

Let's now make it 5 push-ups/day.

Still relatively easy, but it's a little harder for sure.

After a while, we'll make it 10. Then 15.

Then, we'll add pull-ups to the mix.

And then squats. And so on.

In no time, you'll be able to easily hit workouts in the gym 5 days a week.

Because gradual changes are super easy to adapt to.

Start at the bare minimum and gradually increase the difficulty so that it doesn't feel difficult, but you end up getting a lot better.

Conclusion

And that's a wrap!

Those were some easy-to-follow methods to effortlessly maintain consistency and have fun doing the work.

I hope that helped out, and stay tuned for next week’s letter.

Kishore out!