Habit Seeds

Fragments from imaginary dialogues

“When installing a habit, it’s important to start small, and to make it fail-proof. You want to identify the smallest possible unit of the habit that is too small to fail – the atom, so to speak.

You can think of these tiny little habits as seeds that you can nurture and grow.

The best soil for new habit-seeds is the already existing structures – like other habits.

This way, engaging in the old habit becomes a trigger for the new little habit.”

“So, using your model, there are different types of seeds, which grow different types of habits. 

A 1-burpee seed will grow into a 5-burpee seedling. 
A 5-minute writing seed will grow into a pomodoro writing seedling.”

“You could say that.”

“What if you had a universal habit-seed that could grow into all others?”

“What do you have in mind?”

“As we’ve talked before[<link], the atom of the Meditation practice is 1 mindful breath. I call it the 1-breath meditation.

The universal habit-seed could be 1 breath. Let’s call it the mindful habit-seed.

This way, you turn the process of habit creation into Presence/Mindfulness practice.

You can start by planting mindful habit-seeds into key existing habits. This is a meaningful practice in itself. However, at a later time, you can grow these seeds into new mindful-habits, or use them to reclaim existing habits, that is, to turn them into mindful-habits.”