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A Month of Reflection - zen habits zen habits
By Leo Babauta We’re entering the last month of the year, and for many of us, it’s a darker and quieter season. It’s the perfect time for reflection. I like to use December to deepen into reflection, and in my Fearless Living Academy, we do a yearly ritual that I call “Sacred Bow” (as in […]
The Joy of Taking Care of My Life - zen habits zen habits
By Leo Babauta When I was younger, I had a hard time doing some basic things like: I always knew that I “should” do these things, but they felt like too much back then. Avoiding taking care of things always left me feeling like my life was a mess. These days … I’m not at […]
Thoughts on Healthy Eating - zen habits zen habits
By Leo Babauta Eating healthy is something I’ve been a bit obsessed with for the last couple of decades, and I’ve transformed my eating in some really fundamental ways: These are huge transformations for me, and they’ve changed my health and my mindset towards health. At 51 years old, I feel incredibly healthy — and […]
5 Stoic & Zen Practices That I Believe In - zen habits zen habits
By Leo Babauta I believe in finding powerful practices for transformation wherever we can find them. And the Stoic philosophers Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Seneca are huge inspirations for me. I’ve found there to be a huge overlap between Stoicism and Zen Buddhism, even if there are also some key differences. The overlap between Zen & […]
Overcoming the Fear of Aging - zen habits zen habits
By Leo Babauta Last year, I turned 50 years old … and I found myself thinking about aging more than I ever had before. To be clear, 50 years old is still pretty young, but there’s something about the number that had me realizing that my 60s and 70s aren’t very far away, and it […]
There's Not Enough Time - zen habits zen habits
By Leo Babauta Sometimes we decide not to do something because it feels like there’s not enough time to do the task — it will take me 2 hours to work on that task, and I only have 20 minutes, so why bother starting? We do this kind of thing more than we realize — […]
What Happens When You Walk or Run Daily, Without Tech - zen habits zen habits
By Leo Babauta Each day, I try to get outside for a walk or run (or other sport like cycling or basketball), and my debate with myself is often whether to bring my phone and earbuds to listen to music, a podcast, an audiobook … or to go tech-free. Tech-free is my favorite option — and […]
The Practice of Examining Our Beliefs - zen habits zen habits
By Leo Babauta There’s a practice that I find to be really valuable, and I call it “Examining Beliefs.” If you regularly engage with this, it will transform you. Let’s say there’s something you want to do but you feel stuck — maybe you’re procrastinating a lot, maybe you’re stuck in an old habit. The […]
Expanding Beyond Our Old Self-View - zen habits zen habits
By Leo Babauta When we’re looking to grow, what we’re really trying to do is step into a new, expanded view of ourselves. For example, if you want to be more mindful, or live more simply, or be more compassionate with yourself or others, or be more disciplined about your meaningful work … these are […]
The Practice of Letting Go - zen habits zen habits
By Leo Babauta Most of our stresses and frustrations come from our unwillingness to let go. Hear me out: think about something you’re stressing about, or someone you’re frustrated about. What thought do you have about that person or situation that causes the frustration? It’s often an invisible thought, that we don’t realize we have, […]
Turning Towards a Task You've Been Avoiding for Weeks - zen habits zen habits
By Leo Babauta Let’s imagine that there’s a big task you’ve been avoiding for weeks (or maybe a bunch of them!) … it just becomes this ball of dread that you don’t want to think about, but that you feel really bad that you’ve been putting off. Sound familiar? Everyone has something like this, whether […]
Transforming Overwhelm into a Creative, Productive Energy - zen habits zen habits
By Leo Babauta I talk to dozens of people every month — Zen Habits readers, coaching clients and Fearless Living Academy members — who struggle with a feeling of overwhelm from all of the things on their plates. Overwhelm from tasks, messages, and more is completely normal. It’s based on a fear that we can’t […]
Transforming Our Complaints into Something Generative - zen habits zen habits
By Leo Babauta Something that has long been a struggle for me is when people complain a lot — I really don’t love the negative energy, and I tend to turn away from people who are complaining. So I’ve been examining this in recent years … and I’ve been learning a lot about myself. The […]
The Season of Restarting Habits - zen habits zen habits
By Leo Babauta Amazingly, we’re headed into autumn, with summer just winding down now … the changing of seasons is always a great time for reflection. For me, I find that summer often throws of my carefully laid out routines and habits. Travel, visitors, doing more things outdoors … all of this can throw off […]
Getting Clarity of Purpose (plus: final day for $500 retreat discount) - zen habits zen habits
By Leo Babauta A client recently asked me how to get full clarity on their purpose — they don’t feel certain, and that lack of certainty makes it hard to fully commit themselves. You might be able to relate: if you feel 100% sure that something is the right direction and is going to work out, […]
A Short Guide to Dealing with Discouragement - zen habits zen habits
By Leo Babauta One of the biggest obstacles standing in the way of our personal progress is discouragement. Whether you’re trying to form a new habit (reading, meditation, exercise, waking early) or taking on a meaningful project, or just getting your life in order … discouragement is one of the biggest reasons you’ll get stopped. […]
The Surprising Value of Rest - zen habits zen habits
By Leo Babauta Today I’m feeling sore and tired from hard strength workouts, playing lots of basketball, and doing a hill sprint session yesterday with my son. I’ve been working out hard, and I’m really feeling it! So I’m going to take some rest and recovery time. Anyone who is into fitness knows the hidden […]
How to Autoregulate Your Habits - zen habits zen habits
By Leo Babauta When most people try to start a new habit — like exercise, meditation, waking early, journaling — they tend to try to go as hard as they can. And in doing so, they set themselves up for failure. I have a friend who wanted to start running, for example. Every time they […]
Forcing Yourself to Do a Task vs. Letting Yourself Off the Hook - zen habits zen habits
By Leo Babauta People often think, when they’re tired or don’t feel like doing a task (or a habit), that there are really only two choices: And while there isn’t anything wrong with either of these choices, I’m here to remind you that they are choices. And they’re not the only choices. What else can […]
The Magic Daily Practice of Facing Your Fears - zen habits zen habits
By Leo Babauta Every day, there are things we’re resisting, avoiding, feeling some fear about. We don’t often recognize that, but what we most often do is turn away from these things. This turning away leads to a couple of impactful things: This isn’t wrong — it’s just how things tend to go. It’s all […]
The Powerful Effect of Bringing Play Into Your Life - zen habits zen habits
By Leo Babauta How much of your day is spent either 1) trying to make yourself do something you really don’t want to do, or 2) avoiding doing that thing you don’t want to force yourself to do (and feeling guilty about it)? In truth, this is most of the day for many people. Trying […]
Get Good at Finishing Things - zen habits zen habits
By Leo Babauta Recently I had a reader write in to me about not being good at finishing things. A few examples of things they haven’t finished: I can relate! It can be hard to finish things — we get excited about something at the start, but when we get busy or things get hard […]
Our Mistaken Ideas About What Makes Us Happy - zen habits zen habits
By Leo Babauta Most of us are operating on mistaken ideas about what gives us happiness — and these errors are costly. Think about how you normally spend your days — and then think about whether that’s making you happy. Now think about the cost to your health and long-term happiness. Let’s give a few […]
Building Trust in Yourself - zen habits zen habits
I find that almost all problems are a breakdown in trusting ourselves. If we could trust ourselves fully, so many things become effortless. Let me give some examples of where we don’t trust ourselves: Obviously, this isn’t a comprehensive list of problems you might have, but I’m hoping you can start to see where self-trust […]
My Morning Routine - zen habits zen habits
Lately I’ve been waking up early (5:30am), because I traveled to London for a couple of weeks to lead a retreat, and my sleep schedule shifted. I really enjoy it! Someone asked me recently what my morning routine is like, and I told them: It changes regularly, depending on what I need. That said, I […]
Ritual to Greet the Day - zen habits zen habits
Every new day is a tremendous gift. And yet we often take these days for granted, rushing into everything we need to respond to, distracting ourselves, forgetting to feel wonder. Wouldn’t it be lovely to create a morning ritual to greet your day? The purpose of the ritual is to practice full appreciation of the […]
The Possibility of Slowing Down - zen habits zen habits
By Leo Babauta Our days are a busy rush, often from the moment we wake up. Even in our moments of rest, we are often on our phones or using technology to distract ourselves. The result is a life of stress, overwhelm, and habitual patterns. What would it be like to slow down? To find […]
The Chaos & Abundance of Spring - zen habits zen habits
By Leo Babauta For many of us in the Northern hemisphere, Spring has fully arrived: gorgeous sunshine, warmer weather, green trees, blossoms. It’s glorious! With Spring comes life springing into action, full of abundance. This is the chaos of life, full and energetic and exuberant. It’s chaotic but in the most affirming of ways. This […]
The Moment That Ruins Our Focus - zen habits zen habits
By Leo Babauta I challenge you to do a test before you read the rest of this post (well OK, read the next two paragraphs then go do the challenge) … Open an email that’s been sitting in your inbox but that you’ve been avoiding responding to or acting on. Pick the hardest one. Try […]
The Focus of a Monk - zen habits zen habits
By Leo Babauta As I write this, I’m on a long plane ride — I’ve written many posts on planes and trains, and I find it actually much easier to write this way despite the shakiness of my laptop on these rides. It’s easy to write on planes and trains because there’s not as much […]
Honoring Your Word to Yourself - zen habits zen habits
By Leo Babauta There is a power to our word that is very often underdeveloped — words are magic, and can create the world around us. But most of us use this magic as if it weren’t powerful. The first way we see this is that we often don’t honor our word to ourselves. In […]
Cultivate a Positive Mindset - zen habits zen habits
By Leo Babauta One of the best long-term things you can do for a happier life and better relationships is to cultivate a positive mindset. People with positive mindsets live longer, happier lives. They have lower rates of heart disease, cancer. They live about 7.5 years longer, on average. That’s huge. So developing a positive […]
How to Break Dependence on the Phone - zen habits zen habits
By Leo Babauta On average, people spend more than 3 hours on their phones each day, picking up their phones nearly 60 times a day … with some people spending closer to 4 hours. These numbers aren’t meant to be judgments — it’s not a bad thing to look at your phone — but instead […]
How to Develop a Strong Sense of Self - zen habits zen habits
By Leo Babauta Developing a strong sense of self is one of the most under-appreciated ways to be happy. To have healthy relationships, with others and with yourself. It’s not often understood, and as a result, problems in this area cause problems in all areas of our lives. Let me point out just some of […]
Why I Am Vegan (and how to make it easy) - zen habits zen habits
By Leo Babauta My wife Eva and I have been vegan for over 11 years now, and we love it. I don’t talk about veganism a lot on Zen Habits, but today I’d love to share a little about it, if you’ll indulge me. Let me start by talking about why I’m vegan, and then […]
How to Address What’s Really Causing Your Avoidance - zen habits zen habits
By Leo Babauta When we are procrastinating, avoiding exercise or some other habit we want to create, or avoiding taking on a difficult project … the underlying cause is rarely what we think it is. We think that all we need to do is do the thing we’re avoiding, and stop procrastinating. Simple! But then […]
Slow Down to Fall in Love Again - zen habits zen habits
By Leo Babauta “Smile, breathe and go slowly.”~ Thich Nhat Hanh Recently I got a running watch, and have been keeping most of my runs below a certain heart rate, to build up my heart’s aerobic fitness with lots of slow running. The pace of my runs has been incredibly slow for the last month. […]
Become Quiet So You Can Listen - zen habits zen habits
By Leo Babauta “The quieter you become, the more you are able to hear.” ― Rumi There’s rarely a moment in the day when most of us stop moving and stop the noise. For most of us, we’re working, we’re moving, we’re driving, we’re listening to things on our headphones, we’re watching things, we’re filling […]
Cultivating Stokedness - zen habits zen habits
By Leo Babauta How many days do you wake up excited for life, stoked to be alive and take on the day’s challenges? If your answer is “often,” then congratulations! That’s an amazing way to live life — but you’re in the minority. Most people are unenthusiastic about their lives, not looking forward to what […]
Creating a Slower Holiday Season - zen habits zen habits
By Leo Babauta We’re in the midst of the holiday season, and with that can come a lot of abundance: It’s a beautiful season, but it can be a lot! In this article, I’m going to share some thoughts on creating a slower holiday season. Imagine a season of reflection and slowing down. A season […]