#992 How to Avoid Being Miserable

William James on Habits

Ryan Holiday has written a bunch of great books.

The Obstacle Is the Way. Ego Is the Enemy. The Daily Stoic.

His latest? Stillness Is the Key. It’s fantastic.

The book is all about how pretty much all wise teachers across pretty much all cultures have used “stillness” as a cornerstone to peak performance/enlightenment/greatness/all that is good.

Today I want to chat about one passage in particular.

Ryan quotes William James’s wisdom on habits to make the point that we need to “buy room for peace and stillness, and this make good work and good thoughts accessible and inevitable.

Here’s William James on the subject: “For this, we must make automatic and habitual, as early as possible, as many useful actions as we can, and guard against the growing into ways that are likely to be disadvantageous to us, as we should guard against the plague. The more of the details of our daily life we can hand over to the effortless custody of automatism, the more our higher powers of mind will be set free for their own proper work. There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision, and for whom the lighting of every cigar, the drinking of every cup, the time of rising and going to bed every day, and the beginning of every bit of work, are subjects of express volitional deliberation. Full half the time of such a man goes to the deciding, or regretting, of matters which ought to be so ingrained in him as practically not to exist for his consciousness at all.

Highlight on: “There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision, and for whom the lighting of every cigar, the drinking of every cup, the time of rising and going to bed every day, and the beginning of every bit of work, are subjects of express volitional deliberation.

Enter: Our algorithmic automaton.

That’s Today’s +1.

As you get ready to make 2020 the greatest year of your life (and the start of the greatest DECADE of your life), I wonder: How’re your habits?

Have you been using your willpower wisely to install habits that run on autopilot?

Let’s celebrate the awesome algorithms.

And…

Let’s get to work on installing the next most high-leverage ones.

Specifically: What’s THE #1 habit-algorithm you could install that would have THE biggest positive impact on your life for 2020?

Now a good time to start installing it?

P.S. Algorithms are a HUGE part of our Mastery series and Heroic Coach program. In fact, we spend a considerable amount of time Optimizing our Algorithms in Module V of our program. Right after Eudaimonology, The Big 3 (x2), Carpe Diem and Heroic Quests and right before The Fundamentals and Antifragile Confidence + Heroic Confidence + Response-ability.

Learn more and sign up Today if you’d like to use our program to make SURE that 2020 is THE greatest year of your life!

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