On Mastering Habits

Scott Young has posted an in-depth introduction on mastering habits, exploring how to change, improve and modify your habits easily and effectively.

It's a 5 stage process:

1. Introduction - In this article, Scott provides an intro to mastering our habits. First we need to really recognize what a habit actually is. From there we need to develop the ability to become aware of these habits and our ability to seek improvements in them.
2. Conditioning - Conditioning a habit is the primary mechanism for installing it. In this article I’ll detail some of the methods I’ve used to condition new habits to make them an effortless part of my life.
3. Leverage - What do you do when your habit requires more willpower than you have? In these cases, understanding the power of leverage can allow you to take a small amount of willpower to push through an incredibly difficult habit.
4. Replacement - Habits can’t be removed. They must be upgraded or replaced. In this article I’ll detail how we can work on replacing habits to prevent some of the unwanted side-effects caused by massive habit changes.
5. Experimentation - Now you will know how to change your habits more effectively and easily, you can really start pushing the boundaries for what is possible. In this article I’ll give steps for what I feel is the fundamental key from taking your habits from average to excellence.

BOTTTOMLINE: "Habits can be changed and we can even reach a point where even dramatic habitual changes are fairly easy. Changing habits is a skill. Like all other skills it needs both practice and technique."