It’s About Crossing One Thing Off After Another

"One thing addicts trying to get sober quickly discover is just how resilient their addiction is. They quit booze and suddenly find themselves smoking a lot more pot. They quit pot, but now issues are popping up with eating or with sex. Or they get rid of all those bad habits, and realize for the first time that they have a temper or a procrastination issue or terrible anxiety."Ryan talks about the mindset you need to deal with your worst habits on today's Daily Stoic Podcast. Sign up for Daily Stoic's Habits for Success, Habits for Happiness course: http://dailystoic.com/habits***If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signupFollow Daily Stoic:Twitter: https://twitter.com/dailystoicInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/dailystoic/Facebook: http://facebook.com/dailystoicYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/dailystoicSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. 📢 Share | ⚙️ Manage Subscription

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:06Ryan Holiday?

  Welcome to The Daily Stoic, where each day we read a short passage designed to help you cultivate the strength, insight, wisdom necessary for living the good life. Each one of these passages is based on the 2,000-year-old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women. For more, you can visit us at dailystoic.com.

• 0:29Ryan Holiday?

  It's about crossing one thing off after another. One thing addicts trying to get sober quickly discover is how resilient their addiction is. They quit booze and suddenly find themselves smoking a lot more pot. They quit pot, but now issues are popping up with eating or with sex, or they get rid of all those bad habits and realize for the first time that they have a terrible temper, or a procrastination issue, or terrible anxiety. The point is, for every action, there is a reaction. The energy of one bad habit, once removed, emerges in the form of another. Those of us who are not addicts can certainly relate to this as well. The road to progress is rarely as straight as we'd like it to be.

• 1:12Ryan Holiday?

  For every two steps forward, we take one back, or end up on some detour we never anticipated. But that's what this philosophy is about. Remember, Seneca said that each day we should ask ourselves what bad habit we've curbed, what thing we've stopped. Maybe 24 hours is not the right form of measurement for you. Maybe it's a monthly thing, or a yearly thing. If you live to be old, hey, maybe you'll have finally gotten rid of most of your bad habits and bad impulses. But the point is, you have to keep going. Don't despair. Keep chugging away. We assemble our lives, action by action. Marcus Aurelius said, "No one can stop us from that." Cross one thing off after another. Take one step after another. You're making progress. You're getting better.

• 1:58Ryan Holiday?

  The idea of habits of setting one foundational habit up after another, that's the core idea in our challenge. Habits for success, habits for happiness. It's six weeks of really great Stoic-inspired, research-backed ideas from the smartest people on habit formation, habit breaking, systems, organization, all of that kind of stuff. These are habits I try to use in my life. These are habits that have made it possible for me to write this email every single day. So anyways, check that out. Habits for success, habits for happiness. We've had all sorts of people go through it in the last year, so they've really loved it. I think you will too. Check it out at dailystoic.com/habits. And of course, remember, if you sign up for Daily Stoic Life, you get not only that

• 2:41Ryan Holiday?

  course for free, but all of our different courses and challenges, and we'd love to have you.