Stanford professor B.J. Fogg says, “You can never change just one behavior. Our behaviors are interconnected, so when you change one behavior, other behaviors also shift.” Fogg goes on to say that “behavior travels in packs.” In other words, microshifts in one direction (whether positive or negative) tend to impact others. James Clear calls it the “Domino Effect.”

Why do behaviors have a chain reaction? The simplest answer is that when one commits to a certain direction, then one begins to inhabit the identity related to the goal in question. That’s why inhabiting an identity around what you’re choosing to do will prove so valuable over time. Together, with a focus on the process over the result, with consistency that comes from commitment, you won’t even have to choose a basketful of habits. Good habits will beget other good habits.

If you start working out, for instance, you’re also more likely to start eating better, maybe you start back on those protein shakes you abandoned months ago. Maybe you start throwing in some spinach into those shakes. Before you know it, you’re going to bed a little earlier because you’re tired from your exertions, and because you know you’ll feel better for the next day’s workout. Where do you go from there? World domination?

Small examples could be performed with specific intentionality. You might recognize that the first thing you do in the morning is make coffee. Maybe you make a little ritual around the time you’re waiting for the coffee to percolate. You decide to start a practice like the Daily 3–2–1: three things you’re grateful for, two professional things you want to accomplish, and one personal thing. You feel so good about your gratitude practice that you decide to meditate for one minute after.

Jim Collins coined the term “The FlyWheel Effect” in his book, Good to Great, and I think of that as a macro example of habit stacking. A flywheel is a massive metal wheel that often weighs over two tons. It takes a lot of effort to get it started, but once it starts to turn there are counterweights around the outside that take effect and the wheel starts to build momentum almost by itself. From that point, the same effort can be placed on the flywheel and it will start to turn faster and faster.

Much like the idea of melting the ice cube, people can put a great deal of effort into their business without much noticeable effect until one day the flywheel starts to turn. Once the flywheel is in motion it turns faster and faster with increasing returns for the business. According to Collins, it begins with disciplined people using disciplined thought that turns into disciplined action.

Creating the conditions for you to build healthy chain reactions of habitual behavior is just the same. Use the momentum from your knowledge and your desires and apply them, letting you build with increasing impact and efficacy with greater ease.

Create a Chain Reaction

1. Start with what you are most motivated to do. It could be a very small behavior, but whatever it is, do it consistently. This will feel satisfying, and at the same time help you realize the type of person you are becoming each time you do the action. The chain reaction can start from any point.

2. Creating the chain is to then maintain your momentum from one task to the next. As soon as you complete your “most motivated” task, move on to the next task you feel motivated to finish. Let the momentum of finishing one task carry you directly into the next behavior. As you develop the pattern day in and day out, you will become more committed to your emerging identity.

3. As you develop new habits, focus on keeping them small and manageable. The Chain Reaction is about the process. Simply maintain the momentum. Let the process repeat as one chain begins to link automatically to the next.

Does It Ever Get Easy?

While it’s true that privilege is a part of the story of many of the famous people we know who went on to become the wonders they became, it’s not a prerequisite. In fact, one of the most common American hero journeys is the rise from underprivileged to privileged — or at least from poverty to the more realized life one aspires to.

And it’s important too to understand that the hero’s journey is supposed to be hard. At least at times. It takes courage to slay the dragons, to break the bad habits, to wriggle free from dysfunctional and unhealthy relationships from people who want us to remain the same — or locked into the image they have of us. Not to mention the fact that sometimes the hero’s journey itself leads us into a life of sacrifice — and that our lives can in fact become even more difficult.

If nothing else, you’re going to have to sacrifice some time that right now you might prefer spending in other ways. Or you might have less social life, or less sleep (at least for periods of time, but let’s face it we need our sleep to sustain our routines). In many ways, though, the life of the serious individual is not glamorous at all.

Carl Jung, who lived in his now-famous Bollingen Tower, which had no electricity, and other than the kerosene lamps and matches was completely 16th century, wrote:

“These simple acts make man simple; and how difficult it is to be simple!”

Indeed, how difficult in our constantly on-the-grid lives.

Simon de Beauvoir lived “an uncluttered kind of life,” according to filmmaker Claude Lanzmann, her partner from 1952–1959, “a simplicity deliberately constructed so that she could do her work.” In some ways, we might just as well realize that life is going to be hard one way or another. James Boswell arrived at his hard-won insight late in life, “Life has much uneasiness; that is certain. Always remember that, and it will never surprise you.”

But sometimes we are going to be surprised by the resistance we encounter, or the hardships that come along the way. And the hardships won’t necessarily come as a result of your sacrifices and threshold-crossings. They might, and they might not, but either way how are you going to face them?

You Must Act, but Your Thinking Leads the Way

Your thinking has an enormous impact on your reality. Your thinking leads to your actions, and it is through that behavior that we know you, the person you are, and the person you are still becoming. Habits help you live your life bigger and more rewarding, each small step at a time. Habits help form you into being more authentically satisfied and fulfilled as a result of the fruits of your labor, as well as possibly even enjoying the labor itself.

William James concludes with a timeless validation of grit as the secret to success:

“Let no youth have any anxiety about the upshot of his education, whatever the line of it may be. If he keep faithfully busy each hour of the working-day, he may safely leave the final result to itself. He can with perfect certainty count on waking up some fine morning, to find himself one of the competent ones of his generation, in whatever pursuit he may have singled out. Silently, between all the details of his business, the power of judging in all that class of matter will have built itself up within him as a possession that will never pass away. Young people should know this truth in advance. The ignorance of it has probably engendered more discouragement and faint-heartedness in youths embarking on arduous careers than all other causes put together.”

The idea is to focus on the right things, the healthy things, the things that are going to sustain you. There are sure to be surprises and unexpected aid along the way. But in the end, you have to begin by recognizing that you are in some way in dis-ease. From that small window of awareness, you can begin a whole new adventure. An adventure means that you’re going places even if you don’t always know where those places are.

It is one more of those paradoxical qualities about habits: the freedom comes through the constraint. Why have poets for centuries loved to write in the sonnet form? Why is tennis no fun without a net and boundary lines? The fun of a game, the challenge of any artistic project, is to play with the rules or inherited traditions.

Habits can be viewed the same way. They give structure to our lives. We do certain tasks at certain times of the day and night. They can give us purpose. We do them, whether or not we necessarily enjoy them, as a small investment of time in order to reap a larger reward at a later time.