Dr. B.J. Fogg says a golden behavior has three criteria…

One of the darkest places creative people can go in their minds is asking themselves whether or not they should create today. We consider a few ideas, thinking of what to create. None of them feel good enough.

The idea of “decision fatigue” is common in popular science right now. The theory goes that we only have so much mental energy to give to decision-making, and when that decision-making energy is depleted, we are more susceptible to “make choices that seem impulsive or irrational.”

We just launched the second cohort of the 15-Day Creative Consistency Challenge. Each day, a small group of artists and creators will share one creative deliverable on a supportive community platform. There are daily lessons and creative prompts to get the juices flowing. 

“People might be skeptical about their ability to change if they’re by themselves, but a group will convince them to suspend disbelief.”

“The majority of tasks we procrastinate on are usually high in immediate costs but low in immediate benefits, thus making them unattractive in the short run.”

Recently, an artist told me about the freedom she feels when she commits to creating every day, even on days when she doesn’t feel like it. 

You might have a few minutes to cram, or double check information, but the best thing you can do for yourself, with so little time left, is breathe. 

When we see a goal fall out of consistency, we ghost the idea of it. We avoid questions about it and we avoid thinking about it because we feel guilty when we finally remember.

“The first mistake is never the one that ruins you. It is the spiral of repeated mistakes that follows. Missing once is an accident. Missing twice is the start of a new habit.”

There’s something called the “action line.” If something is too hard, and motivation is too low, we don’t take action. But, if motivation is high enough, and the action is easy enough, we take action. 

Bad habits are the bi-product of our breakneck, capitalist culture. A truck spits out Co2. We spit out bad habits.

2022 is coming swiftly. In just a few days, 2021 will be history, and you’ll start to judge the outfits and decisions you deliberated on so heavily. Many people, myself included, are excited to start the new year by building a new habit. But when you stop to consider new habit goals taken on in past Januarys, you might get discouraged.

I don’t just mean the discouragement we have to overcome to make a habit stick. I’m talking about the storylines and barriers we have to overcome emotionally to allow ourselves to commit to certain habits.

If you want to build a habit of working out, you better redefine what working out means to you. The thing that gets in the way of habit development is feeling like our small steps aren’t meaningful enough to pursue.

I opened up this browser thinking I would write one word. Just to keep the streak alive. But that’s the funny thing about habits. Once I wrote one word, the next one followed pretty easily, and then they started flowing. And now I’m done.

It’s simple yet profound: if we create a frictionless environment in which we can create, it becomes much easier. Those who achieve extreme consistency don’t necessarily have more willpower than the rest of us—they simply have designed an environment in which a large amount of willpower isn’t necessary.

“One of the most effective things you can do to build better habits is to join a culture where your desired behavior is the normal behavior. New habits seem achievable when you see others doing them every day.”

The key concepts of The Power of Habit are in the title. Duhigg explains how much power habits have over our lives, as well as how to understand and leverage that power for our own good. He doesn’t just talk about snacking or fingernail biting either–he focuses on how community habits affected the social justice movement and how corporate habits destroyed massive organizations.

“You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.”
–James Clear, Atomic Habits