Foundational Habits

When you’re young, you make your habits. When you’re old, your habits make you.

In Good Habits are Defensible, I claim that habits can be a personal moat. Habits take patience to build and they give you more time, energy and knowledge. These benefits compound over time and thus building a body of habits can be your competitve edge.

But not all habits are the same.

I like to categorize a few habits as foundational. A foundational habit provides disproportionate value to many areas of life and lays the ground work to build other habits. Here are examples of a few foundational habits:

• Meditation
• Reading
• Exercise

Whether you’re young or old, it’s never too late to start building foundational habits. Your future self will thank you.