The 5 Other Foundational Habits You Wish You Had

Daily planning is the foundation habit that lets you stack more habits.

It also lets you accelerate adoption of new habits.

Which is all great, but what habits will give you the most bang for your buck?

1. Exercise

Your physicality is your mentality.

The healthier you are in body, the healthier your mind.

The stronger your body, the stronger you will be in every other area of life.

2. Journal

Writing is amazing. It will change you. It will help you discover truths that you need to move forward.

Truths about yourself and your relationship with others.

Truths about your strengths and weaknesses.

Truths about where you are at right now and how to move forward.

3. Read

Everyone wishes they read more. Some want to do it to learn the ideas and skills they need to be more successful. Some want to in order to experience the great stories. Some want to do it to get in touch with their higher nature.

Some times in your life it may be easy to read a lot, when you’re doing it for school, or got sucked into a great series. At other times, it’s hard to even find time to read the back of the cereal box.

Making reading a habit can make all the difference.

4. Long term planning

After 5 years at a corporate job as a programmer, I was ready for a change.

But I wasn’t sure what exactly. So I started taking 20 minutes a day to just think about my future. I brainstormed possible paths forward in my career. I considered the people I admired and wanted to be like. I brought all my ideas together. Twenty minutes at a time. Sometimes I brainstormed, sometimes I organized, sometimes I dug deeper.

In the end, I knew what I wanted out of the next few years of my life. And I largely got it, because I had a very well-defined vision.

But of course, once I got it, I realized I no longer had that vision. So I had to go back and do it all again.

Now it’s just a regular habit. In addition to my daily planning, I spend some time each day thinking about the bigger picture, the long term.

5. Writing for an audience

Besides journaling and long term planning, each of which involve writing, writing for an audience is another amazing habit to have.

Where writing for yourself forces you to crystalize your ideas up to a point, writing for others requires taking it to a much higher level.

And at that higher level, you will learn more.

More importantly, you can share what you learn, build an audience, and open up opportunities that are available in no other way.

Bonus Habit

6. Floss

Why flossing? Flossing is a great habit because so many people don’t do it, know they should, and it’s dead simple.

Because it’s simple, it’s a great habit for building your confidence and your habit-building skills.

It’s also a great way to practice habit stacking. Unless you’re an ogre, you already brush your teeth. So just stack flossing onto that existing habit.

Once you’ve done that, habit stacking in other areas will get easier.

Bonus Acceleration Tip

Want to add all these habits at once?

Don’t.

That said, you can accelerate the process of adding them one at a time by finding a higher purpose or goal that ties them (or at least some of them) together.

Think of a dream you have: maybe learning an instrument or developing a marketable skill that will lead to a better job.

Then tackle one of these habits with that focus. Reading is a good one to start with. Once you feel good about that habit, add writing or long term planning. Continue adding other habits that support your dream, but that will also serve you well in other areas of life.