making your home work
Over the last five years or so, as I’ve worked with thousands of people on changing their habits, I’ve come to a realization: dissatisfaction with ourselves is a pretty universal phenomenon. We are unhappy with who we are, sometimes in small ways but often in very fundamental ways. We doubt ourselves, feel inadequate, …
Today is my 44th birthday (thanks mom!) and I have a gift for you, my beautiful readers: It’s called The 44 Training Program: Turning Uncertainty to Find Mindful Openness. What the heck is that? It’s a video training program that I’m offering for free, to help you: Wow, can it really do all that?! Yes. Yes, my …
When I started Zen Habits 10 years ago, I simply wanted to share what I’d been learning about changing my habits and simplifying my life with others. Then something magical happened. Over the next year or two, people took some of my tips and changed their lives. They were able to finally stick to some new habits, …
There’s a misunderstanding of the minimalist movement, that you should somehow have almost nothing, fewer than 100 things, or a house that’s empty and white. This can feel oppressive to some, and privileged to others. But that’s not what minimalism is all about, at least not to me. It’s not about telling people they …
How often are we anxious, frustrated, looking forward to something coming up, unhappy with ourselves, unhappy with others? How often are we not happy with what’s going on in this present moment? What if we could, instead, be completely in love with this moment? What if, no matter what happened, we could find the …
We all struggle with our habits — sticking to them, staying motivated, getting started, dealing with disruptions, it can become a big struggle. And yet, to change our habits is to change our lives. If we can’t make habit changes, we will be stuck in our current way of doing things, which might not be so helpful. If …
We normally think of fear as something that’s holding us back, or something to be avoided … but what if we could see it as a powerful tool? What if we could master that tool? We’d become masters at life, able to push through fears of rejection, failure, ridicule, and more. Fear is normally like a barrier for us, …
Most of us are constantly looking for the Perfect System: Entire industries are built off of this desire to find the perfect system for anything that you have uncertainty about. I know, because I’ve spent a good deal of my life looking for the Perfect System in so many areas. I’ve developed nearly perfect systems in …