Welcome to 30 Days to Better Habits: Change Your Habits, Change Your Life
Welcome to the 30 Days to Better Habits course. I’m James Clear.
Over the next four weeks, you will learn the essential elements of creating and maintaining good habits.
There are all sorts of myths about how long it takes to build a new habit: 21 days, 30 days, 66 days. The truth is, there is nothing about time passing that magically forms a habit. Habits are created based on repetition and frequency, not by the clock ticking. The next 30 days can pass and you can do something once or you can do it 100 times.
Furthermore, the question, “How long does it take to build a new habit?” is sort of the wrong question to ask. The implicit assumption behind that question is: How long until it’s easy? How long until I don’t have to put in effort anymore? How long until I no longer have to think about it?
But here’s the truth: The honest answer to “How long does it take to build a habit?” is: forever because once you’ve stopped doing it, it is no longer a habit.
Habits are not a finish line to be crossed, they’re a lifestyle to be lived. That’s why this email course, and my overall philosophy of behavior change, takes a different approach. I’m going to teach you a set of principles you can use to cultivate a new lifestyle, not a set of tasks you can sprint through during a 30-day challenge.
This course builds upon the ideas in my best-selling book, Atomic Habits. My expectation is that most people who take this course will have read (or are reading) the book. You may have even purchased the book in combination with enrolling in this course. That said, you don’t need the book to successfully complete the course.
Atomic Habits is the most comprehensive discussion and analysis of what a habit is, how it works, and how to change it. But despite how useful the book is on its own, I hear from a lot of people who want to know where to start. What’s the first thing I should do? What do these strategies actually look like when I fit them all together in my day-to-day life? Can I get some help implementing all of this?
In this way, 30 Days to Better Habits and Atomic Habits are complementary. While you should expect many of the core ideas to be the same, I have intentionally filled the course with many new examples and applications that you can’t find in the book. When combined, the book and the course deliver a powerful, 1-2 punch.
That said, there are some important differences between the two.
30 Days to Better Habits is designed to help you take action and it offers a form of accountability that you simply can’t get by reading the book alone. Those two things will have you in prime position to build habits that last.
Now let me be clear, this is a long-term journey. This course will give you everything you need to take action immediately, but the work doesn’t stop four weeks from now.
It’s not about working for 30 days and then you’re done. But in the next four weeks, this course will set you on the path toward a new lifestyle filled with good habits.
Like I said in Atomic Habits, good habits make time your ally. The habits you repeat every day largely determine your health, wealth, and happiness.
Build the habit of working out three times per week, and you can get in the best shape of your life. Build the habit of saving $100 per month, and your savings can compound into a nest egg that gives you freedom and peace of mind. Build a gratitude or meditation habit, and you can handle whatever life throws at you with a clear mind and positive attitude.
Knowing how to change your habits means knowing how to confidently own and manage your days, focus on the behaviors that have the highest impact, and reverse-engineer the life you want.
I hope you’re as excited as I am to get started. I’ll have Lesson 1 coming your way tomorrow.
What to expect next
This is a 30-day email course with 12 total emails (an introduction + 11 lessons). You’ll receive a lesson every three days.
In the meantime, check out the helpful bonuses and downloads linked below. The workbook and examples database will be invaluable tools for your journey through these lessons.
See you in a few days for Lesson 1!
James Clear
Author of the million-copy bestseller, Atomic Habits
Creator of the Habit Journal
p.s. If you want to tell a friend about 30 Days to Better Habits, you can use the sharing links below, or just copy and paste this URL to send to them: https://jamesclear.com/30-days
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Helpful bonuses and downloads
- Workbook – This 20-page PDF includes an action checklist (including templates for key strategies) for each lesson of the course, plus lesson summaries and a key terms dictionary.
- Examples Database – The examples database is a Google Sheet of 140+ examples of how to implement each strategy covered in this bootcamp for dozens of different habits.
References and further reading
- For more on how long it takes to form a habit, see Chapters 3 and 11 of Atomic Habits.
- Habits are created based on repetition and frequency: Hermann Ebbinghaus was the first person to describe learning curves in his 1885 book Über das Gedächtnis. Hermann Ebbinghaus, Memory: A Contribution to Experimental Psychology (United States: Scholar Select, 2016).