Good habits help each other

Dec 10, 2024

(1 min read)

Photo of an attractive bald man standing and holding up a toothbrush. He's wearing a well-fitting untucked blue t-shirt and black shorts. The man has a basic bright neon green sphere instead of a head. There is no face. He is in a weight room that has a bench press and a set of dumbbells. There is a window out to the ocean.

I’ve been keeping up with my daily fitness + meditation routine (etc) for a long time, and almost every morning, I kind of chuckle to myself at this thought:

If you can structure your routine such that certain healthy behaviors are actually rewards that are preferable to other healthy behaviors (at least temporarily), you get a virtuous cycle.

When I lift heavy weights and don’t want to move on to the next set yet, I walk over to the bathroom and do my extensive teeth hygiene routine, which I’d otherwise dread.

(But by the way, it’s kind of miraculous, and I should write about it sometime if I haven’t already.)

Similarly, I know meditation is good for me, but I almost never spontaneously think “Know what I wanna do right now? Sit very still and quiet and pay attention to my mindbody.”

Except when my muscles are tired, and there are more exercises that I should do, but I want to procrastinate.

Boom. Problem solved.

Queue meditation.

Even better, there are even more comprehensive feedback loops:

And even that diagram only scratches the surface.

Your circle of influence and circle of control expand as you take better care of yourself.

Sometimes, the way I write makes it seem like I’ve achieved lasting peace and feel like “I have it all figured out”.

The opposite is true.

Being a human is often tortuous.

My partner Katie is used to hearing random groans (can I call it sighing?), whether I’m meditating or showering or whatever and end up encountering a heavy thought and release tension verbally.

But with these habits, I’m hoping I’m headed in the right direction.

Direction > speed.