Generate habits is one the hardest things to do. We are animals of habits but somehow getting new ones, better ones is extremelly hard.

We are eager for change, for improvement but we don’t have the patience to make it happen.

Change takes time, we hear that a lot but we don’t listen, I know I don’t. We are bombarded with information all the time, our brains crave more stimulus, more data, instant gratification.

I’ve been trying to improve myself for the past year, really trying and only after a long time I can see some changes but only small ones.

This is the formula that helped me the most, maybe it can inspire you to do the same.

Read

Everything. All of it, books, blogs, cards, graffitti if you can read it do it. You don’t? learn it.

Get out of your confort zone with books. I only read technical books so I bought The name of the wind and it was the best decision ever. I felt in home, that book reached me deeply.

I only read fantasy books so I bought Ghost in the wires which is the biography of Kevin Mitnick and the raise of social engineering. I love how the world changed in a short span.

I started reading about cooking, about plants, about politics, not just Wikipedia-reading which is like getting a fixed of your read needs… proper reading, long nights/long days reading.

Inspiration and knowladge make you faster, makes you wanting more. Reading takes time and I needed to start learning how to invest time again.

Write

Once you have stuff in your head it starts to overflow, not in a stroke-like experience but more in i-want-to-make-this-permanent experience.

You read for yourself, now write for yourself. Don’t tweet it/facebook it/tumblr it. Just get it out and it will be deeper in you than you think.

I thought that everyone wanted to be listened, that everyone had that need. I thought that everyone that wrote wanted to be read but then I realize that everyone just wants to write.

They say that teaching makes you more proficient on a topic, well, writting makes you more proficient in yourself.

Execute

Do. Not one thing, not one day. Everything, every day. Get on your feet, feel unconfortable in a bar, go out and don’t drink. Eat something unexpected, get lost.

New stuff is out of your confort zone, you are now a writter, find new stories, new characters.

You are a monkey in a rock traveling around a nuclear explosion. In the big picture everything is helpless but in the real world you can get really far.

You want to get slimmer? Don’t focus on weight, don’t focus on sets just focus on doing the first repetition, just one, just once. Then do it again. It’s a process, it will take time so any worries are futile.

You want to read a book? Don’t focus on the amount of pages, or the author just focus on the first page, just one, just once. Then do it again.

The race it’s just against yourself so there’s no rush you do you, everyone is doing the same.

Keep doing it, all the time. This is you now, you change, you read, you write you execute. Nothing changes until everything changes, it happened to your body when you were a teenager, it happened to your feelings after losing that significant other.

Read the stories of the ones that came before you, write your stories for the ones that will come after and execute things, the things you want to do so deeply, the things you wanted to be when you were younger. Not for them, for you.

Don’t tweet it, don’t text it, don’t save a picture of it. Keep that moments for yourself and the handfull of people that share this journey with you.