The Season of Restarting Habits


By Leo Babauta

Amazingly, we’re headed into autumn, with summer just winding down now … the changing of seasons is always a great time for reflection.

For me, I find that summer often throws of my carefully laid out routines and habits. Travel, visitors, doing more things outdoors … all of this can throw off the regularly scheduled programming.

And this isn’t a problem! It just means that when things start to calm down, we have an opportunity to practice restarting the habits and routines that have gotten thrown off track.

This is a skill — restarting is simply coming back to zero, and embracing Beginner’s Mind.

Today, I’d love to invite you to consider what has gotten thrown off track in your life: exercise, healthy eating, waking early, morning routines, meditation, journaling, writing, productivity, finances?

And then let go of any guilt or judgment — practice having grace for yourself. Practice understanding that you’re always doing your best, with the capacity you have on any given day. Practice forgiving yourself, and letting go of what you think you “should” have done.

Then start again — come back to zero and enjoy the start as much as you enjoy the middle or end. There is a joy to this.

Btw, I’m holding a live workshop for my ​Fearless Living Academy​ members next week Wednesday (Sept. 11) at 10am Pacific / 1pm Eastern on this topic:

FLA Workshop: A Primer on Restarting Habits

If you’re interested, join ​Fearless Living Academy​, and the workshop is included! Plus you can work on your habits with the help of a community and my video courses on creating habits in FLA.

Hope to see you there. And I wish you the best in this beautiful season of restarting. 🌺