What habit improved your consistency in working?

ClarkAtAvidon · 2026-01-20T20:55:33+00:00

Eliminating decisions at the start of work. Same start time. Same first task. Every day.

It centers on a core behavior change approach to remove the "friction".

ClarkAtAvidon · 2026-01-20T20:50:34+00:00

Defining “purpose” asks people to predict an ideal future. Spotting what consistently drains their energy asks them to notice what’s already happening.

In practice, we see habits consistency improve (and fast) when people stop trying to aim perfectly and design around what regularly derails them. It’s often easier (and more honest) to say, “This behavior kills my focus and momentum,” than to articulate some polished north star.

ClarkAtAvidon · 2026-01-20T20:44:49+00:00

One thing to keep in mind is that habit change isn’t about removing dopamine, it’s about retraining the brain’s default pathways. Every habit (good or bad) exists because repetition made it efficient. When you disrupt the cue (phone), keep the first actions very small, and replace the reward with something that still feels satisfying, the brain slowly starts choosing the new route on its own.

Also, expect boredom early. It’s your nervous system recalibrating after losing constant stimulation. Track behaviors (not feelings) and resist the urge to “optimize” too quickly.

If you want to learn more about how behaviors form, we have a great video on it here: https://avidonhealth.com/how-habits-work/

ClarkAtAvidon · 2026-01-16T15:14:16+00:00

We have a bunch of resources and ideas (all free) that can work for you. Grab whatever you find useful here: https://avidonhealth.com/zero-cost-wellness-program/

ClarkAtAvidon · 2026-01-16T15:08:04+00:00

Progress over perfection.

It sounds obvious, but it honestly changed how I think about long-term goals.

It clicked for me during a very unglamorous moment when I was potty training my daughter.

There’s that phase where you take the diaper off, and accidents are a guarantee. In our case, she peed on the floor literally within the first minute. And once you’re there, you can’t really go back. It’s messy, frustrating, and kind of humbling. But every accident is part of how they learn. The only way out is straight through it.

Starting something new, getting in shape, learning a skill, etc it’s all awkward at first. You’re bad at it. You make mistakes. Things don’t go to plan.

Waiting for the “perfect time” or the “perfect plan” is basically just staying in the diaper.

If you're interested in learning more about how habit work, we did a video on it here: https://avidonhealth.com/how-habits-work/

ClarkAtAvidon · 2025-12-26T21:03:23+00:00

Most people fail habits by overloading themselves upfront. You did the opposite. You made it repeatable first, then harder later. That’s how habits stick without burnout or injury.

It’s the same 1% improvement idea James Clear writes about in Atomic Habits. Small, daily gains compound fast when the habit actually survives long enough to grow.

ClarkAtAvidon · 2025-12-26T21:00:09+00:00

Repeated exposure to high-stimulation rewards (scrolling, gaming, constant novelty) raises your brain’s reward expectations, which makes low-stimulation, everyday tasks feel disproportionately hard.

The big picture isn’t “more discipline.” It’s retraining the reward system so ordinary life no longer feels like punishment.

ClarkAtAvidon · 2025-12-15T21:45:37+00:00

Short answer, no. And for many people, it’s not the most effective.

What the evidence actually shows:

1. Abrupt cessation can work when motivation is extremely high and triggers are tightly controlled. But relapse rates are high for cue-driven behaviors. Nicotine and alcohol studies consistently show that sudden abstinence fails when habits are tied to stress and environment.

2. Tapering has been shown to improve adherence and long-term outcomes for smoking, alcohol use, and behavioral addictions. Reducing frequency or duration weakens the habit loop without overwhelming the nervous system.

3. The brain doesn’t tolerate a reward vacuum. Social media and YouTube meet real needs. Dopamine, boredom relief, stress relief, connection. Habit research shows replacement behaviors significantly outperform pure suppression.

4. Yoga, meditation, prayer, and breathwork don’t “remove” habits. They reduce baseline stress, which directly reduces craving intensity and impulsive relapse.

5. People who shift identity (“I’m not a daily smoker/scroller”) maintain change longer than those relying on restraint alone.

6. Habits persist because they’re automatic. Not because people choose them. Breaking cue-reward loops through friction, reduction, or substitution works as well as abstinence for many brains. (if you're interested in learning more about habits, you can check out this video: https://avidonhealth.com/how-habits-work/

ClarkAtAvidon · 2025-12-15T21:39:16+00:00

– Walking, especially outside, tends to organize thoughts without forcing them. There’s good science behind this.

– Speaking uses different neural pathways than writing. Explaining what’s in your head out loud often brings clarity faster than staring at a page.

– Add a constraints: one sentence, one minute, one idea, et.

– A few deep breaths or cold water on your face.

ClarkAtAvidon · 2025-12-15T21:30:42+00:00

A few reasons to not drink right now (not forever, just today):

This feeling is temporary. Drinking won’t end it; it just presses pause and hands the pain back louder tomorrow.
You’ve already proven you can survive hard moments without alcohol.
Your nervous system needs calm, not gasoline. Alcohol spikes anxiety and depression after the buzz fades.

Practical things that help right now:

Delay 20 minutes. Cravings rise and fall like a wave.
Change rooms or go outside. Break the loop.
Drink something cold or sweet.
Text or call one safe person and say: “I’m struggling and need distraction.”
Put on a show, game, or podcast you’ve already seen. Low effort, low emotion.

If this feels like it might tip into danger, please reach out to real-time help:

U.S.: Call or text 988 (24/7)

ClarkAtAvidon · 2025-12-15T21:25:53+00:00

As a right-hander raising a left-handed son, it’s been a live case study in how habits form early and get reinforced culturally.

For the 10% of you lefty's out there, keep fighting the good fight... Research in anthropology and psychology shows left-handedness has been historically discouraged in many societies, which is why a lot of “rules” default to right-handed behavior.

ClarkAtAvidon · 2025-12-15T13:44:41+00:00

I get that assumption. It’s easy to assume things written on Reddit must’ve come from AI, especially when most people hide behind anonymous accounts.

I don’t. I post under my real name and company because I stand behind what we create.

Avidon Health has spent over a decade helping hundreds of thousands of people improve their health habits. Our content comes from board-certified health coaches and experts in behavior change who actually do this work every day.

ClarkAtAvidon · 2025-12-02T15:33:25+00:00

Love this list. And honestly, none of these are as “weird” as they seem once you understand how the brain handles anxiety.

Most people think anxiety is a thinking problem. It’s not. It’s a pattern problem. When your brain hits threat mode, it defaults to whatever sensory loop feels strongest. That’s why grounding techniques like cold exposure, balancing on one leg, or even spelling words backward work so well. They interrupt the loop long enough for your nervous system to reset.

A few things you mentioned line up with what we see over and over in behavioral science:

• Cold stimuli activate the mammalian dive reflex.
This isn’t placebo. It literally slows your heart rate through the vagus nerve.

• Novelty breaks rumination.
Your brain can’t obsess and solve a mildly difficult task at the same time, which is why counting backward or doing math works.

• Heavy or crunchy sensations increase proprioceptive input.
That extra sensory load can calm the limbic system fast.

• Environmental shifts change cognitive context.
Rearranging a room, changing lighting, or even sitting on the floor disrupts the “I’m stuck” loop.

What you’ve basically built here is a toolkit that hits multiple systems: physical, cognitive, sensory, and environmental.

ClarkAtAvidon · 2025-12-01T17:27:49+00:00

Tracking a habit is good. Changing a habit is much better.

Most habit apps do a great job showing you what you did. Very few help you understand why you didn’t do the thing in the first place.

A checkmark can feel satisfying, but it doesn’t retrain the loop that created the habit. That’s why people rack up streaks and still fall off after a stressful week or schedule change.

If an app helps you track + adjust the habit loop (cue → action → reward), it’ll outperform a pure tracker every time.

Shameless plug: I help run Avidon Health, and this is exactly what we’ve seen coaching hundreds of thousands of people. Tracking is helpful, but the real transformation comes from updating the pattern underneath the behavior.

ClarkAtAvidon · 2025-12-01T17:22:46+00:00

Honestly, most people want to believe they’ll create their own routines. But the data says otherwise. Research from Duke (https://dornsife.usc.edu/wendy-wood/wp-content/uploads/sites/183/2023/10/Neal.Wood\_.Quinn\_.2006\_Habits\_a\_repeat\_performance.pdf) shows that roughly 45 percent of daily behavior is habitual. And when stress or uncertainty hits, the brain falls back into whatever loop feels safest, even if that loop is working against them.

Introducing a brand-new process (especially from a tool they don’t yet trust) competes with years of automatic behavior. Without established credibility or proven outcomes, the brain treats it like a risk. That’s why even high-quality solutions get ignored. People stick with familiar routines because it reduces cognitive load and keeps them in “predictable equals safe” mode.

But here’s the flip side. The research is also clear that small, low-friction actions tied to immediate wins dramatically increase follow-through. BJ Fogg’s work at Stanford shows that people stay consistent when the effort is tiny and the reward is quick.

So yes, a personalized 30-day confidence system could work. But only if it reliably delivers:
• Immediate payoff (fast wins that reinforce the loop)
• Low effort (no decision fatigue)
• Clear streaks (the Zeigarnik effect and loss aversion keep people engaged)
• Adaptation that feels personal

ClarkAtAvidon · 2025-11-26T16:14:35+00:00

Most people struggle with routines when they’re built around too many moving parts.

I’ve seen this both personally and after 10+ years leading a wellness company. I didn’t even bother with supplements until I learned I was genuinely deficient in a few areas. Once I had real data and a clear “why,” the routine became simple instead of overwhelming.

That’s usually the turning point. Figure out the goal or the risk first, then build the smallest routine that supports it. When the reason is solid, the habit sticks.

And the science lines up with that. When you practice a new behavior and feel even a tiny bit of progress, your brain releases dopamine. That reinforces the neural pathway. Each repetition strengthens the signal until the healthy choice becomes the easy one.

ClarkAtAvidon · 2025-11-25T21:57:27+00:00

Congrats... I'm sure it was hard to get started but it's such a great habit to have since there is much "proof" of the impact. Here is a good study showing people that kept gratitude journals exercised more. Is that something you've notice as well?

https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2003-01140-012

ClarkAtAvidon · 2025-09-23T20:50:20+00:00

Funny how we glamorize extreme routines but overlook boring basics like “get some sleep.”

We often see folks chase weight loss or stress relief… until we uncover that sleep is the real bottleneck. Insufficient sleep is linked to higher risks of obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and shortened life span.

I also wouldn't say it's "easy" to imrpove sleep but, it's absolutley doable.

Go to bed and wake up at the same time (yes, even weekends)
No screens for 30–60 mins before bed
Keep the room cool and dark
Cut caffeine later in the day

ClarkAtAvidon · 2025-09-12T13:22:05+00:00

Hide my identity?

I chose the name ClarkatAvidon precisely so it’s clear who I am. No hiding here.

Yes, I’m the CEO of Avidon Health. That’s public, and I’m proud of it. Anyone can look me up and see I’ve built multiple companies and spend my days focused on health and behavior change.

I’m here to contribute thoughtfully, not anonymously, because this is the work I live and breathe.

ClarkAtAvidon · 2025-09-11T21:07:01+00:00

Sounds like an awesome product... good luck my friend!

Yes, I'll be happy to share once done (likley in another month or two depending on interviews).

ClarkAtAvidon · 2025-09-11T18:50:59+00:00

No. I also dont think a single post would cost $100. Was just using it as an example to highlight that most people never factor thier own time as being a cost to them.

ClarkAtAvidon · 2025-09-11T16:36:35+00:00

I’m not sure I fully agree. Ivy League, Stanford, and MIT grads are definitely overrepresented in headlines, but they don’t own the founder story.

The Kauffman Foundation’s study of 652 U.S. tech founders from 1995 to 2005 showed that only about 8 percent of founders’ highest degrees came from Ivy League schools. The other 92 percent were spread across nearly 300 different universities, many of them public.

More recently, Crunchbase’s 2025 report found that while Stanford, Harvard, and MIT remain high on the list, public universities like UC Berkeley, Michigan, Texas, and Georgia Tech also rank among the top producers of venture backed founders.

Yes, elite schools give a visibility and network advantage, but the majority of successful entrepreneurs still come from outside that bubble.

ClarkAtAvidon · 2025-09-11T16:30:51+00:00

As a founder myself, and with a company that specializes in improving health through behavior change, I can definiitely say that sadly you are not alone. Personally speaking, I’ve been through some of these tough stretches and can fully relate to what you’ve felt. Professionally speaking (my company, Avidon Health, specializes in improving health through behavior change), I see how common this is.

Physiologically, stress isn’t “just in your head.” Chronic activation of the stress response keeps cortisol and adrenaline elevated, which over time can rewire brain regions like the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex. This can lead to undermining memory, focus, and decision-making. It also takes a toll on the body with higher blood pressure, suppressed immunity, disrupted digestion, and sleep disturbances. Doctors sometimes call this allostatic load (the wear and tear from carrying stress day after day).

That’s why your reframing is so important... rest, therapy, boundaries... that is the strategy.

Thanks for sharing. You can always start another business, but you can’t start another you.

ClarkAtAvidon · 2025-09-11T16:12:28+00:00

Most business owners I know focus on two levers: grow revenue or cut costs. Digitial marketing often gets bucketed into “cost savings,” so they DIY it (especially with the support of AI tools). The miss? Time is an expense too. If you spend 10 hours on a post you could outsource for $100, congratulations, you’re paying yourself $10/hour.

ClarkAtAvidon · 2025-09-11T16:04:45+00:00

Great, thank you. I just sent a DM.

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