7 Tiny Habits That Are Incredibly Hard To Do But Pay Off Forever
Anything worthwhile requires a great deal of effort.
Andrea Piacquadio | Canva Life is really hard. If it weren’t, more people would’ve quit their jobs, traveled whenever they wanted, and fulfilled their childhood dreams, but they haven’t. Anything worthwhile requires a great deal of suffering. This is why American writer Anne Bishop said, “Everything has a price. It’s just what you're willing to pay for it.”
What are you willing to pay to achieve what you want? Here’s where your habits come into the picture. What you do most often is what you’ll become. The habits that pay the highest dividend require much more effort, discipline, and patience. While they’re much harder to enforce, the life-long returns are incomparable to the initial investment and energy you pay upfront.
With that said, you’ll never regret enforcing these seven habits. They may be incredibly hard, but they pay off for a lifetime.
Here are 7 tiny habits that are incredibly hard to do but pay off forever:
1. Delaying gratification
Your propensity to delay gratification will determine where you end up in life. For proof, look no further than the Stanford marshmallow experiment. In this study, a child was offered a choice between a reward now or two rewards later. All they had to do was wait. The researcher left the room for around 15 minutes and placed a single marshmallow on the table for the child to consume if they wished. If the child resisted the urge to eat the marshmallow, they would get the extra reward as promised.
Follow-up studies revealed that the children who could wait longer for the preferred rewards tended to have better life outcomes, as measured by SAT scores, educational attainment, body mass index (BMI), and other life measures.
TLDR: Make delaying gratification a habit. Don’t touch your phone until after you’ve finished a difficult task. No dessert on Saturday if you haven’t trained 3–5 times that week. The longer you can delay gratification, the more successful you’ll be.
2. BreakIing the procrastination cycle
Procrastination plagues us all. But it’s wisdom if you’re willing to listen to it.
In the book Who Not How, the author, Benjamin Hardy, says, “Procrastination is a powerful signal telling you that it’s time to get another Who involved. You’re stuck. You need help.” He argues that the bigger your ambition, the more procrastination you’ll experience because it’s part of having big goals that stretch you.
Shorten the delay between idea and execution by asking, “Who can help me with this?” instead of “How can I do this?” The less time you spend procrastinating, the faster you level up.
3. Saying “no”
Warren Buffet, one of the most successful of all time, once said, “The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say no to almost everything.”
Successful people know that 80% of their results are derived from 20% of what they do. Getting caught up in the 80% that doesn’t move you closer to your goals wastes time. Successful people prioritize effectiveness; thus, they make saying “No” a habit. The more you say “No,” the more time you have to focus on your 20%.
4. Fixing your sleep
When I was a kid, I thought my parents were punishing me when they gave me a bedtime. I used to say, “I can’t wait until I’m older and can go to bed whenever I want.” Now, I’m older … I prefer having a bedtime. Sleep helps to repair and restore our brains.
As we sleep, we process information, consolidate memories, and undergo several maintenance processes that help us to function effectively during our waking hours. The better rested you are, the more effective you’ll be. The secret to being better rested is to go to sleep and wake up at the same time. If life gets in the way and you can’t sleep at the same time, still wake up at the same time, but be sure to have a nap during the day to recoup the lost hours.
Another tip to help you sleep better is to ditch your phone in place of a book. This chills you out and prepares your mind for a good night's rest.
5. Feeling the fear and doing it anyway
In the book Do Hard Things: A Teenage Rebellion Against Low Expectations, the author, Brett Harris, says, “Courage is not the absence of fear. It is rather not letting your fear control your actions.”
If life is hard, you must do hard things to triumph. This doesn’t mean you won’t be scared while doing them — you will. When it comes to doing hard things, everyone feels fear. Including Elon Musk. In an interview with Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, Elon said, “It’s not as though I just have the absence of fear; I feel it quite strongly. But there are just times when something is important enough that you do it in spite of fear.”
The same goes for you! If an amazing quality of life is important to you, make doing what you gotta do despite the fear a habit.
6. Being consistent
In 2019, Ceaser Azpilicueta, or Dave, as everyone at the club used to call him, was made Chelsea FC captain after the departure of Gary Cahil. Despite playing at the highest level, Azpilicueta didn’t light the world on fire. He was an old-school full-back. I’m talking shorts tucked in and not afraid to get stuck into a tackle. To him, attacking was an afterthought. To put it bluntly, he was a bang-average player. But he played week in, week out.
Since his move from Marseille in 2012, Azpi made 508 appearances for Chelsea before departing in 2023. All 12 managers who managed Chelsea during his time at the club trusted him with a starting spot in the team. When asked why, they all said the same thing — “You know what you get with Azpi.” He was a consistent player; in every game, he’d get at least 7/10.
Moral of the story: you don’t need to be great if you’re consistent. You can get away with being OK if you show up regularly.
I like the way Dwayne Johnson (a.k.a. The Rock) put it — "Success isn’t always about greatness. It’s about consistency. Consistent hard work leads to success. Greatness will come.”
Azpilicueta is now regarded as one of the Chelsea legends.
7. Seeking feedback from valued sources
Fun fact: you’ve never seen your face in person. The only time you do is through reflections, mirrors, and photos, which means there’s always a slight distortion.
The way to truly know how you look is through other people. We need others to help us become better! The more you seek and implement feedback from valuable sources, the better you become. This means you’ve gotta get good at accepting and applying criticism. I learned this the hard way through my Medium comments.
In one story, several people complained about my usage of “cos” instead of “because.” At first, I resisted — “This is just how I talk…” Then I realized I was ruining their reading experience and could easily simplify things by simply writing the full word. I still use slang in my writing, but not because.
TLDR: Make seeking and implementing feedback from valuable sources a habit.
Life isn’t just a walk in the park. You gonna have to do some difficult things if you wanna make the most of your time here — that’s because everything worthwhile requires some form of suffering. These 7 habits are extremely hard to do but pay dividends for a lifetime. They are:
1. Delaying gratification
2. Break the procrastination cycle
3. Saying “No”
4. Fixing your sleep
5. Feeling the fear and doing it anyway
6. Being consistent
7. Seeking feedback from valued sources
You’ll never regret enforcing them.
Kurtis Pykes is a professional writer with articles featured on Medium, Nvidia blog, DataCamp, and neptune.ai, among many others.