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Zen Habits

The Practice: Create Impactful Shifts with Daily Training

Published over 1 year ago • 2 min read

Making huge shifts in our lives can be daunting, to the point where we don’t even try. How do you conquer a mountain?

What I’ve found to be incredibly effective is to do a daily practice of just 15 minutes, that leads to a huge impactful shift over time.

Small but impactful, practiced every weekday.

This is how I created The Practice in my Fearless Living Academy. The Practice is something you challenge yourself to do for just 10-15 minutes a day, every weekday, with accountability and measurement of progress to increase your effectiveness.

Let me walk you through a common example …

Let’s say you struggle to turn towards tasks that feel difficult and a bit scary. Basically, lots of work tasks are like this — just enough difficulty and resistance that you avoid them. Things pile up, you stress about all of it, you feel bad about yourself, your projects get stalled. This is a small problem that has added up to a huge difficulty for you.

The Practice would challenge you to block off 15 minutes every weekday for 4 weeks, where you:

  • Spend 15 minutes practicing difficult tasks: Make a list of the difficult tasks you’re avoiding, and choose from the top of the list each day.
  • Make it easier: If a difficult task would take you more than 15 minutes, just choose a first step in the task that will take you 5-15 minutes. An easy start.
  • Stay accountable: After each weekday session, report to an accountability group.
  • Stay consistent: Try not to miss any days, but if you do, simply start again the next day.
  • Measure your progress: Do this for 4 weeks. Check in to see how much better you’re able to take on difficult tasks after 2 weeks, and then 4 weeks. This will help you see how much you’re making progress.

If you do this practice for 4 weeks, you’ll see a noticeable impact on your ability to take on your difficult tasks.

What we’ve seen in our experiments is that it makes a difference — small at first, but measurable and impactful. Over time, a big difference.

If you did this same Practice over the course of 2-3 months, it would have a huge, huge impact. Or … maybe you have 2-3 things you’d like to shift, and you did one per month … over the course of several months, your entire life would shift. Just from 10-15 minutes of focused time a day.

So for you, what practice would actually make a big impact? And if you practice that, what meaningful change could that empower in your life?

Take on The Practice this coming month by joining my Fearless Living Academy.

with gratitude,
Leo

440 N Barranca Ave #3806, Covina, CA 91723
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Zen Habits

Leo Babauta

Dive into mindfulness, simplicity, habit change, and the art of living with intention and purpose

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