BONUS: 10 Stoic Habits To Practice In 2025

0:00I'm recording this on a Monday, and Monday is our grocery store day in our family. I usually pick my kids up from school and we go over to Whole Foods, get all our groceries for the week. Although here very shortly, we're going to go over there to get our Thanksgiving turkey because they've got a bunch of great options. Turkeys start at$1.49 a pound if you have Prime with organic birds at$2.99 a pound. And they only carry no antibiotic ever turkeys that will bring quality to your table at a great price. Whole Foods has great everyday prices on all your Thanksgiving essentials, whether you celebrate with a massive family or just a few close friends.

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1:18Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each day we read a passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you in your everyday life. On Tuesdays, we take a closer look at these Stoic ideas, how we can apply them in our actual lives. Thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoy.

1:44Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to an extra bonus episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. Because I have some exciting news, which is I'm going to be sending in the draft of my next book probably tomorrow. I finished the first draft of the Wisdom book in November. It was like 99 ,000 words. Not like 99 ,000, like 900 words. So way too long. It's down now just below 80 ,000. That's the benchmark I hit today. I got a little more work to do. There's a few sections. The cuts were too painful. and uh so i was like i'll wait a second until i dig into it um so that's on my to-do list tomorrow and then i got a stack of some extra note cards little pickups here there i want to add and then that's going to go into production so i'm really excited about that so um that's not really what today's episode is about though today's episode here we are a new year is upon us and we put together some Stoic habits that you should practice in 2025.

2:46I think you'll like this. We'll get right into it. But just a note, this is your last chance to join us in the Daily Stoic New Year, New You Challenge. Dailystoic.com slash challenge. Thousands of Stoics all over the world are doing this. We kick the year off with 21 days of Stoic-inspired challenges. And if you haven't signed up yet, but I've been meaning to, well, let's start the new year with the most sort of important meta habit there is, which is following through on things that you want to do, right? Like we all have these kind of vague commitments, hopes, like, hey, I want to do that. I want to think about this.

3:24And then we don't, we don't do it, but we should. And I would love to see you in the Daily Stoic New Year New Year Challenge. It's not too late. We start on the first, but we're just, everyone's getting settled and just getting going now. So we can bring you up to speed really quickly. And I would love to have you join us daily stoic.com slash challenge. And then remember, if you want to get this challenge and all our challenges for free, you can do that by signing up for daily stoic life, which one of the awesome benefits is you get all of our daily stoic challenges as part of it. So more than pays for itself daily stoic.com slash challenge, or just go to daily stoic life.com.

4:01And let's get into it. Here's 10 stoic habits to practice this year. I'll see you on the other side.

4:11We just took our kids to an outdoor performance at the Nutcracker. They had a snow cone and then they went insane in the car ride home. And one of the things I try to remind myself when that's happening is that I don't control my kids' behavior, especially when they're too far gone like that. But I do control how I respond, right? That's stoicism, but it's also what Dr. Becky talks about. Dr. Becky is a clinical psychologist and a best-selling author, and she founded Good Inside, which is there to give parents practical, actionable tools for handling those everyday challenges with confidence. My wife introduced me to Dr.

4:48Becky's books. I love them. I've recommended them a million times. I've had her on the podcast. And as it happens, Dr. Becky is hosting two live Q &A events for Good Inside members. I am one of them. She signed me up for it about a year and a half ago. I've loved it ever since. On December 1st, you can join Dr. Becky for her How Not to Raise Assholes event, which is about avoiding entitlement and raising kind, empathetic kids. And on December 15th, she's hosting her How Not to Lose It over the holidays event, which I'm sure we could all use. As I said, I'm a big fan of Dr. Becky. She's been a great influence for me as a parent and just as a human being.

5:29And Daily Stoic listeners can join for 15 percent off with code STOIC15. You just got to head over to goodinside.com to catch the events.

5:44How much longer are you going to wait to demand the best of yourselves? We all know we have potential. We all know we have things we need to stop doing. We all know we have things that we should start doing, but we tell ourselves we'll do it later. But will you?

5:59At the end of the year, everyone thinks about how the year went and how they want the new year to go better. What they're really talking about is habits. Epictetus once encapsulated all of Stoic philosophy in just two words, persist and resist. Meaning there were some things we had to keep doing. And as we look out here at the beginning of a new year, it's the perfect time to start quitting some destructive habits. What are you day-to-day in your actions, big and small? That's how we become better. I'm Ryan Holiday. I've written books about stoic philosophy. I've been lucky enough to speak about it to the NBA and the NFL, sitting senators and special forces leader.

6:36But I'm also just a regular person who's trying to get a little bit better every single year. And in today's episode, I want to talk about some stoic-inspired habits that you can look at as we go into a new year. Habits to stop doing, habits to start doing, who the Stoics want you to be to create, hopefully, a new you.

6:59I think the first place to start is the idea of thinking really, really small. George Washington's favorite saying was, many mickles make a muckle. This is an old Scottish proverb. It basically just means like things add up. Zeno, the founder of Stoicism, says, well-being is realized by small steps but it's no small thing you don't promise yourself that you're going to read more you decide you're going to read a page a day you don't decide that you're going to transform your diet or your exercise like you start going for a walk make a small decision and then you build on it about this i love james clear's book atomic habits i got to see him put this book together we go way back we sell this book my bookstore the painted porch but i think the idea of atomic habits is like as the subtitle says, tiny changes, remarkable results.

7:46But even think about what an atomic, what it means to say an atomic habit. It's not just explosive, like an atom is the smallest possible building block you can think of. So when we think about habits, let's start really, really small. Don't lie to yourself. Don't get ahead of yourself. Just think of the smallest thing you can start with.

8:07Don't give into your anxiety this year. You have to stop letting anxiety rule you. In one of the passages in meditations, Marcus Ruella says, today I escaped anxiety. He said, wait, wait, no, that's not right. This is actually, I discarded it. It was within me. The plane, the airport, that's not responsible for your anxiety. You're responsible for anxiety. You're responsible for your feelings. You're responsible for the worry that you're projecting at this thing. And it's not helping you. It's not making you better. It's not doing anything about the problem. You're just torturing yourself in anticipation of what might happen or might not happen.

8:40I've never been in the thrall of anxiety, traveling somewhere or some big project, and then afterwards been like, I'm so glad I was so anxious about that. No, it made people around me upset. It made me upset. It made me miserable. It didn't do anything for me, and it's not going to do anything for you this year.

9:00I think it's impossible to have good habits without a routine. So you have to develop and build a routine. Habits and routines, they work together. So for me, I wake up early, I take my kids outside, we run or we go on a walk. One of my rules, I don't touch my phone for the first one hour that I'm awake. I journal in the morning. Then one of my big habits is I tackle my big creative project first. I don't get sucked into email first. I don't have a meeting first. I don't watch TV first. I tackle the big creative project first. Again, that's one of the things I identify with that I own the morning I'm a morning person I tackle the morning I kick the shit out of the morning I am successful in the morning that wasn't just naturally who I was this is something I had to develop and build so you need a routine you cannot wing it Seneca says that life without design is erratic he says principles are necessary there's nothing more shameful than uncertain chaos and disorder.

10:00So build a routine and stick to it. Stick to the routine. And again, these are little things. What time do you wake up? What time do you go to bed? What time do you have lunch? What do you do? What do you not do? Build a routine and stick to it.

10:18One of the stories I was most moved by that I was most excited about when I was writing Discipline is Destiny is the story of Dwight D. Eisenhower. He had a four-pack-a-day, 40-year smoking habit. And his doctor said, you're going to die if you don't stop. It's screwing with your heart. It's screwing with your lungs. If you want to continue to be of service to the country, you got to stop. And so Eisenhower famously said, I gave myself an order and I stopped. He quit cold turkey after 40 years. It's actually a very stoic idea. Epictetus says, no man is free who is not master of himself. Seneca said, we're all slaves to something.

10:50Some people are slaves to sex or or their mistresses, he says. Other people are slaves to power or ambition. Maybe some of us are slaves to that cup of coffee in the morning. We all have things that we do that we know we need to stop doing to be the person that we wanna be.

11:08One foundational habit for next year, free up precious resources. People say, oh, I don't have time. But pull up the Screen Time app on your phone. You have time. You just choose to spend it on things that don't matter. You watch too much news, You spend too much time doom scrolling. You say you don't have time, but here you are watching this video. We spend too much time on things that don't matter. So one of the best habits changes I've made is sort of winnowing my worldview. Of course, you have to know what's going on in the world, but you don't have to obsess about it in real time. You don't have to consume things that make you feel crappy or awful or suck you into this catastrophizing mindset.

11:45If you wish to improve, Epictetus says, you have to be willing to not know about some things, right? So focus on what matters, lock in time to focus on making better habits by eliminating things that are sucking up too much of your time now.

12:03Every new year, Seneca started the year off the same thing. He would throw himself into the Tiber River, the freezing river in Rome on the 1st of January. She's saying, I'm in charge. I'm so in charge i'm hurling myself into this freezing river even though i really don't want to

12:22who do you associate with studies show like if you have unhealthy friends you're going to be unhealthy if you have ambitious friends you're going to be ambitious my father said this to me as a kid he said ryan you become like your friends so associate with people that make you better if you dwell with a lame man was the old expression you will learn how to limp now so who do you surround yourself with? Who's your peer group? Who are the people you spend the most time with, and how do you become the average of them? We have the Daily Stoic Life community, by the way, which I'd love to have you join.

12:51It's like a private Facebook group. You get extra emails. You get Q &As with me. I think it's one of the best things we do. But the idea is, who's your community? In the ancient world, the Stoics had the Scipionic Circle, a group of Stoics who would get together and have dinner parties and events and debate philosophy and read books and share with each other. Even the relationship between Seneca and Lucilius, which we get in Seneca's letters of a Stoic. It's them talking to each other. He says, we learn as we teach. By having this peer group, they both get better. So who are you spending time with this year?

13:23That's a foundational basic habit that will make you better.

13:29This year, you can't fear change. In one of the beautiful passages in meditations, Marcus Rullus reminds himself that everything in life comes from change, good and bad. And by trying to keep things the same, not only are you, of course, focused on something that you don't control, but you're preventing yourself from all the wonderful opportunities that exist that could come your way. Look, we live in a time of disruption. We live in a time of institutions that are falling apart. We live in a time of innovation, new institutions that are being created. So you can't fear what's going to come of that.

14:01The Stokes would say, all you could focus on this year is embracing those things, adapting yourself to change, acquiescing to that change, rather than fighting it, rather than fearing it, rather than resenting it. Because it's gonna happen regardless of how you feel about it. So what you should focus on, Stokes would say, is what you're going to do about it.

14:22You have to say no to the inessential. Marcus Riles says most of what we do is not essential. But when we say no to those inessential things, when we eliminate them, it gives us a double benefit, he says because then we can do the essential things better so you have to realize that everything you say yes to means you're saying no to something else but conversely and most importantly when you say no to the things that don't matter it gives you the opportunity to say yes to the things that really do matter and not a little yes not a soft yes but an emphatic both feet yes and that's what you need to be successful and happy and good

15:00and it is inevitable that we will fall short. Marcus did, I do, everyone does. Antoninus Pius probably did too, which is why in meditations Marcus Aurelius says to pick yourself back up when you fall, but he also says to celebrate the fact that you're a human being. What matters, he says, is that you come back to the rhythm of it. We're going to be jarred by circumstances. We're going to be messed up. We're going to slip on our diet, on our new year's resolution, on the progress we were making, that's okay. What matters is that you get back up. What matters is that more often than not, you stick to it, that you always come back home to it.

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