By Leo Babauta We live our lives rushing through tasks and messages, meetings and emails, chores and errands, until the end of the day comes and we start again tomorrow. This is the usual way of living — we’re getting through things so we can be done with them. The opportunity in … | Continue reading
By Leo Babauta One of the keys to living a life of calm and purpose is the art of letting go. If you’d like a more peaceful life, it’s powerful to look at what disturbs that peace, and practice letting go of whatever you’re holding onto that’s causing you anxiety and frustration. … | Continue reading
By Leo Babauta I’ve worked with lots of incredible people who want to create something — whether it’s art, a book, a business, or some impact on the world. One of the stories we often have when we want to create is that we’re too busy, pulled in too many direction, or need to cle … | Continue reading
By Leo Babauta So many of us spend a ton of time and energy stuck in indecision — the stress and delays that come with this are quite incredible. One of the things I’m proud of about myself is my ability to make decisions quite effortlessly. This isn’t to brag — there are costs t … | Continue reading
By Leo Babauta I’ve seen a lot of people with goals about changing how they spend their time, things like: These are wonderful goals! They all involve something that theoretically is pretty simple: simply change how you spend your time. But it’s rarely that simple, is it? Somethi … | Continue reading
By Leo Babauta I’m publishing this a bit late (I usually post by the end of the year) but that is a good summary of 2022 for me: chaotic and messy, but still amazing. It’s hard to fully share what the year was for Zen Habits, and for me personally … I went through a […] The post … | Continue reading
By Leo Babauta There are a number of common blockers for creating powerful change in your life: Each of these can derail your efforts to create something new. And to be clear, there is nothing wrong with any of these — they’re wonderfully human traits. But to create powerful chan … | Continue reading
By Leo Babauta The holidays can be stressful, with shopping, travel, family gatherings, extra busyness, winter storms, and more. The chaos of our lives plays out in sometimes heightened form over the season. In this post, I’m going to share the practice I’ve been using to deal wi … | Continue reading
By Leo Babauta I’ve noticed that so many people are feeling overwhelmed, scattered, and stressed – so much so that focus and effective work become incredibly difficult. So what can we do to be more effective in the midst of this scattered, overwhelmed state? Today I’m going to sh … | Continue reading
By Leo Babauta Something I’ve noticed that derails a lot of people’s goals or attempts to form habits is the feeling that it’s pointless to even try. If it feels like it won’t matter if you do anything … why would you try? And so when people feel this, they will usually give up, … | Continue reading
By Leo Babauta I’ve been diving deep into working with full commitment lately, in my personal transformative work and working with my clients. It’s fascinating work. The biggest stumbling point for people is the dichotomy between: Being detached from the goal, which can ironicall … | Continue reading
By Leo Babauta At the start of the pandemic, in the midst of chaos and uncertainty, I launched Fearless Mastery, my small group coaching and mastermind program. It was actually perfect timing: my intention was to help people train to be open in the middle of uncertainty, so that … | Continue reading
By Leo Babauta The feeling of being overwhelmed is extremely common in the people I talk to, and it’s becoming more and more clear to me that this is the default state for most of us. We’re overwhelmed by it all: all the things we have on our plates, all the interruptions and mes … | Continue reading
By Leo Babauta Our focus during the day is almost always muddled. We switch between everything, and at any given 5-minute period, most of us would often be hard-pressed to say what we’re focusing on. That’s not how our minds work most of the time. It’s no wonder we struggle to fa … | Continue reading
By Leo Babauta A lot of us want to make changes in our lives — whether it’s changing a bad habit like smoking or overeating, creating a new habit like meditation, or simply being less distracted or reactive during the day. Whatever the change, you’re likely to face internal resis … | Continue reading
By Leo Babauta I’ve been noticing lately how much of our lives is spent wanting to do something, wishing we could do something … but struggling to move into action. What’s the struggle to make this transition all about? And how can we more consciously make the transition into act … | Continue reading
By Leo Babauta People I’ve been coaching lately have been stuck in indecision about what purpose they should pursue. At this kind of crossroads, we can become plagued by doubt. And that makes sense: if you’re not sure what your purpose is, then going after a single choice can fee … | Continue reading
By Leo Babauta I’ve worked with a number of people who want more spaciousness in their lives — more time for rest, play, reading, reflecting, self-care, hanging with friends and other loved ones. The challenge isn’t that it’s hard to create more time (for some people, it is actua … | Continue reading
By Leo Babauta Someone I know shared that they came back from a meditation retreat excited about the meaningful possibilities they’d envisioned on the retreat — new projects, opportunities, important stuff they wanted to create. So incredible to be excited about meaningful possib … | Continue reading
By Leo Babauta You might know that I’m a fan of simplicity and minimalism — but for me, it’s not just about having less stuff or even doing less. For me, it’s a way of moving through the world with lightness. Not lightly tiptoeing around trying not to make an impact, but with lig … | Continue reading
By Leo Babauta Lately I’ve noticed a lot of people are feeling drained by life — the challenges they’re facing, their workloads, the anxiety of the world around them, and more. Someday soon I’ll write a longer guide to how to get yourself to a place of renewed resilience … but fo … | Continue reading
“You live as if you were destined to live forever, no thought of your frailty ever enters your head, of how much time has already gone by you take no heed. You squander time as if you drew from a full and abundant supply, though all the while that day which you bestow on some […] … | Continue reading
By Leo Babauta At the core of a lot of our difficulties is a lack of trust — especially trust in ourselves. Think about these common difficulties that most of us face: What to focus on: We don’t trust our hearts to choose what we’d like to work on right now. Indecision: We get st … | Continue reading
By Leo Babauta It’s a simple fact: the pandemic has increased the amount of impulse shopping most people have been doing. There are lots of stats proving it, but you can simply take a look at your own life and the lives of people you know to see that it’s true for you. Why have [ … | Continue reading
By Leo Babauta I’ve had a few emails from readers who ask me how to be compassionate towards other people without taking on all of their suffering. Opening your heart to another person can be emotionally taxing if you are feeling all of their pain. It’s an incredible question, be … | Continue reading
By Leo Babauta Every day, we go through a set of actions that is training our minds in the long term. Sometimes we’re training intentionally: we meditate, practice focus, get ourselves to start a workout, resist temptations, etc. Mostly, though, we’re training unintentionally: wh … | Continue reading
By Leo Babauta A lot of people I talk to are unhappy with their ability to get stuff done in their lives. They feel they’re wasting a lot of time, never really getting anything important done. What I like to play with is the idea of having a “powerfully effective day.” It’s a big … | Continue reading
By Leo Babauta This month I came back to my work after taking a full month off — I am a stand for taking time off and finding time for rest and replenishment. After a month off, it turns out I have a pile of tasks, emails and messages to go through! It’s daunting. It […] The post … | Continue reading
By Leo Babauta Very often, the way we live our lives is that we go through the motions — we do our work, try our best, tackle the things we have to do, take on our obligations, or we slack off on those obligations and find comforts where we can. What we often forget is […] The po … | Continue reading
By Leo Babauta So much of our difficulties can be entangled with our sense of self worth — from whether we take care of ourselves with good habits to how we are in relationships to how much confidence we have at work. Think about your biggest difficulties (other than problems at … | Continue reading
By Leo Babauta When we’re hit with uncertainty either suddenly or in large amounts, it can throw us off. We can get frustrated, overwhelmed, stressed, discouraged. This is normal and there’s nothing wrong with it. However, it’s my belief that we can train ourselves to stay more b … | Continue reading
By Leo Babauta Most of us don’t realize how powerful stories are in our lives, because we don’t even notice that we’re telling ourselves a story. But stories shape everything. For example, the stories you tell yourself is the reason you feel: Resentment toward a loved one or cowo … | Continue reading
By Leo Babauta In recent weeks, almost every coaching client I’ve been working with has been feeling one big thing: overwhelm. It seems almost universal: people can’t seem to deal with the big things in their lives because they’re feeling too overwhelmed. They can’t take on their … | Continue reading
By Leo Babauta Every round of my Fearless Mastery program has simply blown me away. At the end of the 5-month round of this small group coaching program, we celebrate our victories — and every single person has some profound inner and outer victories to share. We just finished ro … | Continue reading
By Leo Babauta This week, we’ve opened up enrollment for my deepest program, Fearless Mastery. It’s 20 or so people coming together to support each other’s meaningful work in community, and to get supported by me and our other coaches. The name “Fearless Mastery” brings up a lot … | Continue reading
By Leo Babauta Quitting an old habit or forming a new habit is fairly simple when it comes to the steps to doing it: find your trigger and do a new habit at that trigger over and over. Remind yourself to do it. Make it rewarding. The simplicity is deceptive, though: there are som … | Continue reading
By Leo Babauta The other day I was having such a chill, easy day despite doing all of my usual work and chores and workout activities — the phrase, “Life on Easy Mode” came to me. The rest of the week, I kept the question in my mind, “What would it be like to have […] The post Ho … | Continue reading
By Leo Babauta I’ve noticed that a lot of us will be pretty wiped out at the end of a long day of work or social activity, to the point where we need time to recuperate from exhaustion. There’s nothing wrong with that, but let’s talk about the possibility of doing hard things wit … | Continue reading
By Leo Babauta One of the most common problems when people are working is that they get caught up in busywork or distractions, and it can take hours before they find their way back to their meaningful work. Part of that is procrastination, of course, but a lot of times it’s just … | Continue reading
By Leo Babauta We usually dislike challenging situations, conflict with others, struggle with our work or habits. Struggle sucks! But what if it were a part of the training of life? What if every conflict, failure, difficulty, hard emotion … were exactly the lesson we needed to l … | Continue reading
By Leo Babauta Every one of us has thought patterns that keep us stuck: Discouragement: What’s the point, I’m going to fail anyway, why even try, it’s too hard. Rationalizing: It’s OK to skip this, I can do it later, one time won’t hurt, do it but don’t try that hard, wait out th … | Continue reading
By Leo Babauta The habits we just can’t seem to quit can be very challenging — not only are they hard to change, they can have negative effects on our lives, and make us feel bad about ourselves. In this post, I’d like to talk about a few things I’ve found helpful to curb a […] T … | Continue reading
By Leo Babauta We are held back from creating the life we want, from our highest purpose, from our greatest growth and learning … by what we know. Destroy what you know. Once we feel like we’re a little good at something, we cling to that. We cling to wanting others to think we k … | Continue reading
By Leo Babauta Something I’ve noticed is that we spend a lot of our lives wrapping our identity in our bodies. If our body is something we’re proud of, we feel really good about ourselves … but much more often, it’s a sense that something is wrong with us because our bodies don’t … | Continue reading
By Leo Babauta Much of our days are spent with busywork or distractions. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, busywork and distractions can be lovely ways to spend our time. But sometimes we want to use our time powerfully and effectively. Let’s look at ways to work with increased … | Continue reading
By Leo Babauta Sometimes, our heads won’t stop thinking about something. Our thoughts will spin around and around, not willing to let go, obsessing. It might be about another person, a big event coming up, or about ourselves. It might be overthinking a decision, big or small. The … | Continue reading
By Leo Babauta A surprising number of our daily struggles stem from our attachments. Let me list a few: Overeating: There’s nothing wrong with eating, but when we eat out of the habit of comforting ourselves or not knowing when to stop, it can lead to feeling bad or having worse … | Continue reading
By Leo Babauta One of the great joys of my life is living simply, and every now and then finding ways to return to simplicity. Life tends to get complicated with time, and so I find ways to simplify. I’ve done lists with 100 ways to simplify, but obviously that’s not very simple! … | Continue reading