New Year Habit: Doing This One Thing Every Day Guarantees A Better Life

So What is it? Always do at least 1 Hard thing every day. Something you don’t want to do but you know is good for you. This is a Hat tip and version of the brilliant Luca Dellanna’s “Do one thing every day that builds self respect.” Self respect is key to happiness and accomplishment, it helps you in making the right decision and taking the right steps in your life. 

Think about the holidays whether Summer, Thanksgiving, Christmas/Winter break. You literally do nothing but eat, shop, chill and watch Netflix. It’s fun for a few days, even a week. After a week, or even two, you feel like crap mentally. You feel aimless and groggy. It’s no different than eating junk food like chips, McDonalds, soda pop. Feels great while you are doing it, but you certainly suffer afterwards. 

People are “Mission Seeking Missiles” as Caleb Jones once remarked. This is why I see many successful founders who sell their companies for massive amounts of money. After a few weeks or months on the beach, they jump right back into the scene. Either investing in other founders and usually starting another company. Another example, think about the super rich kids who have more resources than they can spend, who can do anything or go anywhere. Yet, after eating, doing, traveling and indulging themselves continuously, they eventually become miserable and listless. It’s because they have no mission or goal in life. Their life is meaningless despite being full of pleasure. Pleasure fades over time. 

I’m a big believer in rest ethic and having fun. Otherwise what’s the point in life? But as in life, too much of a good thing turns into a bad thing. There is actually a scientific term for this. LD50. This is the amount of a material, given all at once, which causes the death of 50% (one half) of a group of test animals. So basically all things in excess become toxic. For example, having way too many vitamins or too much water can turn toxic to your body, even though at small doses it’s very good for you. 

So the point: do that one hard thing every day. Make your bed, or go to the gym and do that extra set of reps, have that hard conversation with family, friend or employee you are putting off but need to do, write and post that blog, do that podcast, make that sales call you have been dreading. 

If you do this every day consistently, your life will absolutely get better. Or you will feel it does at least. It’s working well for me so far.