I hate how much sleep I need. I mean, I love when I get a full night’s sleep. There is nothing like it, but these days I find myself needing between 9 and 10 hours of sleep to feel fully rested. That’s a lot of time that could be spent doing other things like working and studying. Because I get up early for my meditations, I often find myself in bed at around 8:30 pm trying to sleep while the small children in the apartment above me are still loudly prancing around. Nonetheless, despite the fact that I seem to be trying to fall asleep while many others are still trying to get their work done, I choose to remain steadfast in aiming for a full 10 hours of sleep. This is a foundational habit for me. This is a habit that if not followed through on, makes the entirety of my day suffer.

Foundational habits are not things that you can designate as “optional”. Of course, you try your best to do them and it doesn’t always work out for one reason or the other, but by designating them as necessary, you save yourself from creaking open that door of “I can do this other thing instead” even a little bit. Because I know for me, once I put my hands on that metaphorical doorknob, I’m destined to always lose that argument with myself: the one that leads me to the short term gratification over the long term fulfillment. Much like the foundations of a building, every other thing in your life rests on the strength of these habits.

If I don’t get a full night’s sleep, the next day I lack motivation and I seek stimulation to keep my mind from feeling tired. This usually leads to me spending all day on my phone, just seeking that next source of dopamine to keep my mind alive. Then just like that, all the things that I wanted to get done that day fall by the wayside. These instances compound on top of each other, and create this negative feedback loop. Because I didn’t do the healthy thing earlier, it is that much easier to not do the healthy thing now.

Foundational habits are the other bricks in my foundation. They put me in the frame of mind to do the right thing for myself and others.. Even though I can’t control what will happen to me on any given day, if I sleep well and meditate (my other foundational habit), I set myself up for the best chance at success. This is the key point, with your foundational habits, you are creating the best odds that every day will be fulfilling. Like a skilled poker player, you can not always know exactly what the dealer has in store for you, but through correct preparation, you can maximize your chances of winning.

Of course, in an ideal world, all of the good habits we want to incorporate wouldn’t be optional. But in reality, jam packing all of these non-optional habits creates a large amount of rigidity in your life and schedule, which can in turn lead to greater stress and strain to get these things done. What I encourage instead, is to prioritize your habits, starting with your foundational ones and building from there. I believe not all habits are created equally, so I implore you to ask yourself, “what are my foundational habits?” and let this be the first step towards understanding what it is that you really need and how to achieve your ideal life. I find when I try to think of habits that others might deem foundational, these habits share two qualities: simple and fundamental.  Things like going to bed early, exercising, and clean dieting. These are foundational because of how much they affect every other aspect of our day. The lower priority habits on the other hand, are great and may also contribute to our self development, but not to the same extent. It’s okay to miss these lower priority habits when more important things come up.

For example, I am trying to perfect my Mandarin speaking and reading skills. To achieve this, I try to spend at least 30 minutes a day doing flashcards, speaking in mandarin to someone (usually my wife) or otherwise consuming some mandarin speaking content. This is a great habit for me and I can see how it positively affects my cognition and overall social skills. However, if I have a project that I am working on for school, or some similarly unplanned wrench in my system, I can miss a day or two of mandarin study. This is because that habit is not foundational. The quality of my day does not solely rest on whether I get 30 minutes of flashcards done in the morning.

The extent of how much you wish to delineate your habits is up to you. You can tier them out from A to F or just label them “foundational” and “non-foundational”. The important thing is, you establish what the foundational habits are for you. If you can’t think of any, hone in on that aspect of your life that you feel is negatively affecting your day to day and list habits that would help rectify that aspect. Doing this will hopefully instill you with greater purpose and motivation to get out of bed each morning. I know it does for me, especially if I’m able to get those 10 hours in. 🙂

-Dylan