How to Cultivate a Powerful Mind: Daily Practices for Growth

What you do every day matters, a lot.

Hundreds of years before the discovery of neuroplasticity, Epictetus was already talking about it.

Every habit and faculty is formed or strengthened by the corresponding act — walking makes you walk better, running makes you a better runner. [2] If you want to be literate, read, if you want to be a painter, paint. Go a month without reading, occupied with something else, and you’ll see what the result is. [3] And if you’re laid up a mere ten days, when you get up and try to walk any distance you’ll find your legs barely able to support you. [4] So if you like doing something, do it regularly; if you don’t like doing something, make a habit of doing something different.

(Penguin Classics) Epictetus, Robert Dobbin — Discourses and Selected Writings-Penguin Classics (2008)

Everything you do and think carves each time a bit deeper a canal in your brain. So, it is pretty straightforward, if you’re looking to change something or begin doing something, you must do it regularly.

It is easy to fool ourselves and think that a tiny action doesn’t matter, it being so small. Like for example, practicing for 5 minutes in Duolingo (language learning app), or 15 minutes practicing guitar, but it does matter. Not…