The Habit Blueprint

The Habit Blueprint strips down behavior change to its very core, giving you the ultimate, research-backed recipe for cultivating the habits you desire, with plenty of backup steps you can take to maximize your chances of success.

Roughly 40% of what you do each day happens on autopilot. Take a second to let that sink in. According to a study by Duke University, you don’t deliberately choose almost half of all the actions you perform on a daily basis. These automatic behaviors can be good or bad, depending on the habits you’ve acquired so far, which means they can drag you up or down quite fast.

That’s both staggering and a little frightening, but it’s no reason to despair. Because while you can’t change your habits from one day to the next, over time, you can make sure what you do on autopilot makes you better not worse.

Consciously making your first habit change is always the hardest, but if you pick the right habit, it’ll also be the most transformative.

You can achieve this by selecting a so-called keystone habit first. In architecture, a keystone is the stone at the very top center position of an arch. It’s the stone that holds the entire arch together. Remove it, and it collapses. But if it’s in place, it stabilizes the entire arch.

Transferred to habits, this means some affect your life more positively than others, because they cause a ripple effect and support further, positive behaviors.

For example, exercise is a big keystone habit for Pat. As long as he keeps a proper fitness regimen, he finds he naturally sleeps better, eats better, is more productive and enjoys life a lot more.

I’m sure you can almost immediately think of a habit that has that same effect for you. Common ones are sleep, exercise, and eating right, but it might be something else entirely.

Think about which habits have been keystone habits for you in the past, and pick the one you think will be the most impactful to focus on when you’re just starting out.

Speaking of starting out, try not to go from couch potato to marathon runner in a day, okay? Most of us have tried to make changes way too big, way too fast and have crashed and burned. The reason is as non-obvious as it is simple: your willpower fluctuates tremendously throughout your day. I hope you’ll never be in one, but in some situations this can make the difference between life and death. For example when you’re standing in front of a jury of parole board judges, who have to decide whether you’ll be set free or return right to your dimly lit cell.…