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Habit$$$Expensive: Several hundred dollars and up.

Working with a life coach

Regular sessions with a coach who sets priorities and holds you to them

Ongoing paid sessions with a coach whose job is to set priorities with you and then hold you to them, usually by phone or video, sometimes with daily check-ins by text. Unlike therapy the focus is forward: what you say you want, where your behavior does not match, and what excuse is standing in the way. Good coaches are blunt. Fees vary enormously and the field is unregulated, so people tend to find one by referral. Users describe it with the same logic as a sports coach: elite performers have one, so why not for the rest of life.

Who backs it

Sorted by strength of stance

  • Actor · Wolverine and The Greatest Showman

    Has worked with life coach Lauren Zander, whom he found through Dr. Mark Hyman, for four years, and says the work has changed his life. Her job, as he tells it, is to call him on perfectionism and safety-net thinking. Federer has a full-time coach, he points out, so why not invest the same in the art of living.

    Source: The Tim Ferriss Show #444 transcript

Other entries filed under productivity or stress.

  • HabitFREE, no cost

    Journaling

    Writing to unload the mind, usually first thing or last thing

    Backed by 9 of 44 stacks: 9 do it, 0 recommend it, 0 have discussed it
  • HabitFREE, no cost

    Deliberate discomfort

    Choosing the thing you do not want to do, daily, as its own training

    Backed by 3 of 44 stacks: 1 do it, 2 recommend it, 0 have discussed it
  • HabitFREE, no cost

    Accountability mirror

    Telling yourself the blunt truth in the mirror every day, then fixing it

    Backed by 1 of 44 stacks: 1 do it, 0 recommend it, 0 have discussed it
  • HabitFREE, no cost

    Act on the thing causing stress

    Make the first call or send the first email on whatever is nagging at you

    Backed by 1 of 44 stacks: 1 do it, 0 recommend it, 0 have discussed it
  • HabitFREE, no cost

    Lenten fasting

    Forty days of giving something up, plus fast and meat-free days, in the Christian calendar

    Backed by 1 of 44 stacks: 1 do it, 0 recommend it, 0 have discussed it
  • HabitFREE, no cost

    Morning puttering

    A slow, unscheduled first hour or two: coffee, the paper, breakfast, no meetings

    Backed by 1 of 44 stacks: 1 do it, 0 recommend it, 0 have discussed it

Habit entry · notes paraphrased from cited sources, quoted excerpts copied from the transcript they link to. Not medical advice. Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or reviewed by anyone listed. How this works.