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To Form A New Habit, Train Like An Amateur

“Instead of wishing you could ‘Be like Mike,’ you need to focus on and enjoy the small everyday tasks in order to accomplish those long-standing stubborn goals such as ‘I need to exercise more.’ In short, you need to become an amateur. An amateur is a consistent practitioner of a healthful habit.”

One of the reasons people struggle to develop new habits is because they approach them in the wrong way — they set out to train to be an expert instead of training to be an amateur.

Nir Eyal explains the difference between the two and suggests the best way to develop a new habit is to train like an amateur.

This includes a focus on tiny steps and miminal enjoyable actions as opposed to deliberate practice on areas of weakness, personal enjoyment instead of competition, and doing things for lifelong value instead of aggressive performance goals.