Keystone Habits - Priming Your Day For Success

In the pursuit of our best selves, there's a key challenge we all have faced, or are likely facing right now.

If I asked you, right now, to list 5 things you aren’t doing in your life that you know you should be doing, I imagine you could easily do so.

In fact, chances are the number is much higher than five. And why is that? We eat things that aren’t good for us, spend time on things that don’t matter to us, and act contrary to our purported ideals.  Sometimes it can feel like we're trying to hold up the entire world.

There’s a gap between what we know, and what we do. And the result? Poor health. Wilting relationships. Misused time. Unmet potential. This condition of personal discord can feel immutable, but in fact there’s a way to reconcile these seemingly disparate parts of us.

Self-integration requires consistent effort over time, and while the process can appear daunting, the good news is that decades of research in multiple disciplines of human behavioral science reveal some potent tools which, if applied, can dramatically accelerate your personal development.

I call these tools, “Keystone Habits.” Like a keystone holds up an arch by supporting the pieces around it, a Keystone Habit is a practice that supports a state of mind that enables us to better live in harmony with our ideals.  These habits can relieve us of chronic work, and extend bridges of momentum to reach far-off opportunities with ease.

Photo by Neil and Zulma Scott on Unsplash

Ironically, the inconvenience or discomfort of some of these practices land them in the, “should do but don’t,” category for many people. Exercise, for example, is a brilliant way to enhance mental clarity, among countless other benefits.

Yet the energy and discipline required to do it often prohibits us from exercising! By layering certain habits together we can escalate our momentum, and as a keystone begins the support for every sequential stone in an arch, so too we support greater and greater habits.

So we start with a habit that is easy, even enjoyable. We could also call it a ritual. This is what the Magic Mogu Shots are designed to do. We created them to be one of several potential, “first dominos of the day,” to jump-start your momentum. By enhancing mental clarity, providing a calm alertness, reducing excess stress, etc, you prime yourself for successful decision-making.

The particulars of how these functional mushroom shots engage with your nervous system and body overall to bring about these effects, as well as the outlining of other “first dominos” will be provided in additional blog posts in this series.

If you already have a morning ritual, such as coffee or tea, adding or substituting a Magic Mogu Shot makes it easy. And if you have the time, take a moment while you drink your chosen beverage to consider how you’ll structure your habits that day.  (And don't worry, the shots won't change the taste!)

Following blog posts in this series will lay out, “Habit Arches,” introducing habits that build on each other in sequence to create a path of least resistance. These posts will be provided periodically as, “Shots of Inspiration” for you, laying out step-by-step habits you can adopt gradually over time.

This allows you to conserve your focus to only the next step, rather than be overwhelmed by 40 things at once. If you’re reading this, you’ve already taken the first step on the path.

-Jason Gottfredson, Mental Cartographer

Eat. Excel. Evolve.