Transforming Your Habits can Transform You Life

Waking up early, working hard, and taking cold showers do not cause success.

No one illustrates that point better than Nassim Taleb, who wrote this in Fooled By Randomness:

“Hard work, showing up on time, wearing a clean (preferably white) shirt, using deodorant, and some such conventional things contribute to success—they are certainly necessary but may be insufficient as they do not cause success.”

Where you are in your life is a result of your habits. Will Durant (not Aristotle) said it best: “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”

I think that’s also true for the opposite of excellence. Mediocrity is a result of mediocre habits. That means we can go from mediocrity to excellence by changing our habits. But how do you do that?

Before we get into that, I want to clarify my statement: Habits change your life, but they do not guarantee success.

Because that’s what “the habits of millionaires” type of articles and books tell us. We get it, Elon Musk sleeps 2 hours a day and eats Cheerios for dinner—or something like that.

But what the writers of those type of moronic articles hide from you, the reader, is that correlation doesn’t mean causation.

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, here’s my four-step process for making life-changing habits stick.

Decide what habits are worth it

Look, I can talk to you about the habits that have changed my life habits all day long, but that’s not helpful. The reason is that only YOU can decide what a good habit is.

Deciding if a habit is worth it to you is critical to forming new habits. Too often we hear about something, and we think:

“I should do that!” Really? Should I wake up an hour earlier? Should I take cold showers? Should I eat like a cave person? Should I run every day?

Maybe waking up early is actually helpful to you. I don’t know. When I wake up early, I behave like a grumpy old man who hates people—that deteriorates the quality of my life. Hence, I don’t wake up very early (7 AM or earlier) no matter how many people tell me it will make me successful. Just ask yourself this:

“Will habit x improve the quality of my life?” The reason you want to ask yourself that question is that we all need a reason to change. We need something that’s bigger than superficial reasons.