The Best of Leo Babauta
20+ most popular Leo Babauta articles, as voted by our community.
Creator of Zen Habits. Training in uncertainty. Zen student, vegan, dad, husband.
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How Simplicity Reveals Life
By Leo Babauta This morning I was eating a really simple meal, with minimal seasoning, and I savored its deliciousness. Often I go the opposite way: I eat too much, too quickly, with an overwhelming…
Leo Babauta on Better Living
3 Questions to Create Your Life
By Leo Babauta Very often, the way we live our lives is that we go through the motions — we do our work, try our best, tackle the things we have to do, take on our obligations, or we slack off on…
«When we meet resistance, our patterns show up. These patterns and the fears that lead to them are exactly why we haven’t created the life we want yet.»
Leo Babauta on Meditation
Meditation for Beginners: 20 Practical Tips for Understanding the Mind
The most important habit I’ve formed in the last 10 years of forming habits is meditation. Hands down, bar none. Meditation has helped me to form all my other habits, it’s helped me to become more…
Leo Babauta on Mindfulness
When You're Overwhelmed, Simplify
By Leo Babauta The feeling of being overwhelmed is extremely common in the people I talk to, and it’s becoming more and more clear to me that this is the default state for most of us. We’re…
«Only after you’ve done the first practice should you take on this one: take one thing from the Huge Pile and focus completely on it.»
5 Ways to Reduce Your Stress Levels
By Leo Babauta Stress is a part of life, and eliminating it is a fool’s errand. If you ever succeeded in eliminating all of stress, your life would be boring and you’d have removed yourself from…
Leo Babauta on Perfectionism
Why Perfectionism Stops Us from Creating New Habits
By Leo Babauta When we decide to create a new habit — exercise, healthy eating, meditation, writing — we can get excited and optimistic, and have an idea of how it will go perfectly. This is such a…
«“Let me try to bring a daily ritual of doing X into my life, and be curious about what it will be like”?»
Leo Babauta on Personal Growth
Embarrassment is an Integral Part of the Growth Process
By Leo Babauta A well-known climbing coach said that the biggest obstacle in the way of people’s growth as climbers is, basically, fear of embarrassment. When people want to get better at climbing,…
Leo Babauta on Productivity
Be All In: Unlock Your Full Power
By Leo Babauta One of the things that really humbled me in recent years is the realization that I am often only halfway in on anything I do. I’m rarely ever really all in. For example, I might join a…
«Even when you feel like giving up, you don’t give yourself the option.»
How to Have a Powerfully Effective Day
By Leo Babauta A lot of people I talk to are unhappy with their ability to get stuff done in their lives. They feel they’re wasting a lot of time, never really getting anything important done. What I…
«Wonder — how can I see wonder in everythingCuriosity — how can I learn something from every moment?Love — how can I bring love into everything I do?Aliveness — how can I feel lit up about my life?»
Leo Babauta on Purpose
The Ridiculous Effectiveness of Singleminded Devotion to a Purpose
By Leo Babauta People I’ve been coaching lately have been stuck in indecision about what purpose they should pursue. At this kind of crossroads, we can become plagued by doubt. And that makes sense:…
«If you’re stuck in inaction and doubt, you often just feel crappy about yourself. You get zero results staying in this kind of false safety.»
Destroy What You Know
By Leo Babauta We are held back from creating the life we want, from our highest purpose, from our greatest growth and learning … by what we know. Destroy what you know. Once we feel like we’re a…
Leo Babauta on Time Management
How to Tackle a Mountain of Tasks
By Leo Babauta This month I came back to my work after taking a full month off — I am a stand for taking time off and finding time for rest and replenishment. After a month off, it turns out I have a…
«What if the mountain of tasks and emails becomes this place of adventure, exploration, play, curiosity, learning, joy?»
How to Make the Most of Your 24 Hours
By Leo Babauta So many of us feel a scarcity of time: we feel rushed, like there’s not enough time to do everything, always behind, never feeling like we’re doing enough. This problem is called “time…
«reflect with gratitude. At the end of each day, take a few moments to reflect back on your day and think about what you’re grateful for.»
Leo Babauta on Zen
Become Your New Habit
By Leo Babauta Quitting an old habit or forming a new habit is fairly simple when it comes to the steps to doing it: find your trigger and do a new habit at that trigger over and over. Remind yourself…
«CLINGING TO OLD MENTAL PATTERNS The mental patterns that keep us stuck in old habits are tied to our old image of ourselves.»
Powerful Training for the Mind
By Leo Babauta Every one of us has thought patterns that keep us stuck: Discouragement: What’s the point, I’m going to fail anyway, why even try, it’s too hard. Rationalizing: It’s OK to skip this, I…
«Try the new thought pattern. Say it to yourself and try really believing in it. Fully empower it. See what effect it has.»
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We Make Everything Harder
By Leo Babauta It sometimes amazes me how we make everything harder for ourselves than it needs to be — myself included. That’s not a bad thing — it’s simply human. Harder is not worse. We learn from…
How to Put Life on Easy Mode
By Leo Babauta The other day I was having such a chill, easy day despite doing all of my usual work and chores and workout activities — the phrase, “Life on Easy Mode” came to me. The rest of the…
«When you’re going about your day, think about the simplest thing you could do right now that would be helpful. Then savor that simplicity.»
How the Feeling of Pointlessness Can Derail Us
By Leo Babauta Something I’ve noticed that derails a lot of people’s goals or attempts to form habits is the feeling that it’s pointless to even try. If it feels like it won’t matter if you do…
«What would it be like to find meaning in the place that feels pointless?»
Mastering the Art of Letting Go
By Leo Babauta One of the keys to living a life of calm and purpose is the art of letting go. If you’d like a more peaceful life, it’s powerful to look at what disturbs that peace, and practice…
«Try it right now: whatever you think you should be, whatever you think someone else is, is just a conception you’ve created. Can you let it go in this moment, and see what you’re left with?»
The Moment of a Lifetime
There is a concept in Japanese tea ceremony from Zen, roughly translated as “one chance in a lifetime,” or “one lifetime, one meeting.” It’s such a beautiful idea: any meeting you have with someone is…
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