The Power of Pinpointing Your Keystone Habit

“Motivation gets you started, habit keeps you going” ~ Jim Rohn

We often think that that much of what we do with our time each day is the result of a well considered and purposeful decision we’ve made, the truth is it’s not. It’s all habits that we’ve ingrained in our brain.

A wealth of research has been conducted in this field and I won’t go into it so much here. The focus for this blog post will instead on the power and benefit of pinpointing a keystone habit.

Habits are those choices that we’ve consciously made at some point that we’ve eventually passed over to our subconscious and have become automatic. The brain can’t tell the difference between a good habit and a bad habit, it creates them to make life easier for us. Which obviously doesn’t always turn out the way we like, especially when it forms bad habits.

The concept of pinpointing our keystone habit is helpful for us because it is a way that will help us make behavioural change in many areas of our lives at once. It allows us to take out many birds with one (key)stone as it were.

What is a keystone habit?

A keystone habit is the common factor that links together all your other good habits. The one core habit that when you do it has a trickle down and flow on effect throughout your life. Often it will be the thing that is highest in your hierarchy of values or that thing which is most important to you.

For me it’s writing and reading. When I’m regularly writing and reading daily everything else in my life seems to flow and fall into place. For you it could be anything. The trick is to pinpoint what that one action that allows the rest of your life to click into place. Once you have found what it is for you write it down and make a commitment to do this one action every single day.

For many people physical exercise is a keystone habit. As this supports many other healthy habits, such as eating healthy food, drinking lots of water, spending time with others who value their health and fitness, walking or riding places instead of driving and so on.

How will it be of benefit?

Other than being a simple and easy way to ensure that we’re practicing less bad habits and more of our good habits. The simple fact that we don’t have to focus on so much is one of the biggest benefits of incorporating this idea into our lives. By simply ensuring we take this one action each day, it allows the rest of our life to fall into place seamlessly and effortlessly. So instead of focusing on taking all the actions on our list it refines our focus to one point. Which then frees up a ton of mental space. Giving us more clarity, freedom, energy and focus for everything else in our lives.

Though it’s quite a basic and simple concept, the power of it cannot be overstated. The simplest ideas are often the most powerful.

Actions to implement this idea right now:

• Write down all of the good habits you’d like to develop
• Think of the times when you were crushing it, and write down all the things that you were doing during this period
• Choose one habit which will support and allow you to link all the others
• Commit to taking this one action every day for 30 days

Please comment below and let us know what your keystone habit is or if you have any questions.

– Zulu Flow Zion

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