There's no perfect time to start. So let's start today.

Let’s face facts. Most of us are great about putting off habits.

We are often waiting for the perfect moment to start them.

New year. New month. Monday. The first of the month. After the busy season. After the holidays. After things calm down a little. We are always waiting for that perfect moment as if that will be be what makes us succeed this time around.

And then we blink and it’s June and we’re still waiting, and the habit never happened.

So I’m just going to pull of the metaphorical Band-Aid and say it… there is no better time than right now. Not next Monday. Not July 1st. Today. This week. The moment you finish reading this.

That’s what the 5-minute habit of this challenge is really about. WE aren’t chasing perfection. Not the ideal conditions. Just starting right now.

I want to be honest with you here about a habit I tried to start… because that’s kinda the the whole point of me putting these Substack posts out there.

I have started gratitude journaling before. More than once. I’ve bought the journals, set the intentions, written a few entries that felt genuinely good… and then stopped. Life got busy. I skipped a day. Then two. Then I’d find the journal weeks later shoved under something on my desk and feel vaguely guilty about it.

The habit never stuck because it wasn’t anchored to anything. It was just floating out there in my day, waiting for a free moment that never reliably came. Was I going to be grateful in the evening after a long day? In the morning before the rush happened? Maybe at lunch? I didn’t even know the answer myself.

This time, I’m doing something different.

After reading Tiny Habits (which I highly recommend), I realize I was missing that anchor. B.J. Fogg calls it a recipe. You need to have the plan that leads to a success habit.

So here’s was the new plan…

Every morning, there is a small window of time between pressing the button on the coffee maker and that first glorious cup being ready.

You know the window I mean? You are not quite awake enough to do anything useful. You are definitely not ready to look at your phone. You are simply... existing. Waiting for the caffeinated nectar from the gods to do its work.

(If you don’t drink coffee… first, I’m sorry. Second, think about what you do without fail every single morning. That thing. That’s your anchor.)

That little window? That’s my gratitude journaling space now.

I have a journal with prompts and I cannot recommend this enough if a blank page has ever made you freeze. (Why does it give me same anxiety as taking a test?) Prompts make you think rather than just list the same three things on autopilot. They pull something real out of you forcing you to answer with honesty.

Yesterday’s prompt was: What’s one thing that happened yesterday that you’re grateful for?

And I sat there with my coffee brewing and I thought about my team call with History Through Fiction the day before. About working with Colin Mustful, and the community of authors we get to support, about the HTF team as a whole, and the people putting their stories out into the world, trusting us to help them do it. And I wrote that down.

It took maybe four minutes. But I started my day having genuinely reflected on something that matters to me. That’s not fluff. That compounds. The grateful slowly shifts your outlook on life.

But it could be something totally different for you.

Now it’s your turn.

The 5-minute habit work portion of this challenge is yours to shape as you see fit.

Maybe it’s gratitude journaling alongside me. Maybe it’s something completely different that you’ve been meaning to build into your life. The only rule is that it has to be something intentional. Something you’re choosing on purpose.

And here’s the question I want you to sit with before you decide…

What habit have you been starting over and over again and what would it mean to finally make it stick?

Find your anchor. Attach the habit to something you already do without thinking. Keep it to 5 minutes. Show up tomorrow. And the next day. And the next…

That’s it. That’s the whole thing.

Let me know in the comments, what’s your habit you want to start, and what are you anchoring it to? I want to know what we’re all building together.

Read. Move. Build the habit. Change your life.